Holy Week’s a-comin’, friends. After basically missing the whole shebang last year due to a case of extremely overdue pregnant-itis, I’m stoked for this year. Holy Week, the high point in the church year that begins with Palm Sunday (April 9, this year) and ends on Easter Sunday (April 16), is the best. If the church had a Super … More 10 Ways to Enter Into Holy Week
It was 1985 and Joe Simpson was in big trouble. He’d fallen, his leg was broken, and he was high in the Peruvian Andes. After a freak mountaineering accident, he landed deep in an icy crevasse. At that altitude, in blizzard conditions, a broken leg was basically a death sentence, never mind the fact that he … More You Gotta Go Down * 10 Minute Devotional
Back when I trained as a hospice chaplain, I was often surprised at how much our team–doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains–laughed together. It wasn’t that we didn’t cry, too. We cried a lot. We cried plenty. Watching people die, supporting them at the end of life, ministering to their families and friends, it made each of us … More A Gospel Paradox * 10 Minute Devotion
I have no real roots in Lent. My childhood evangelical church didn’t celebrate it. My Catholic grandmother did, but I just chalked it up to the other stuff she practiced that I didn’t understand, like wearing long underwear in July. (“I’m cold,” she’d tell us on an 85-degree day.) Yet in college, amidst papers and … More Why I Do Lent * 10 Minute Devotional
My childhood pastor once told our congregation the story of a man walking down a beach tossing starfish back into the water. If they stayed washed up on the beach they would dry out and die, so he tossed them back as he strolled along the ocean’s edge. The problem was that there were thousands of … More It Matters to This One * 10 Minute Devotional
The first church I pastored was in rural Wisconsin. Farm country. We lived on the town’s main thoroughfare, and our toddler son often stood glued to the front window watching tractors roll down the street. A man in our congregation heard that Daryl had never driven a tractor (why this surprised him I do not know, since Daryl grew … More Waking Up in Anxious Times * 10 Minute Devotional
What is one thing about your life you wish you could change? I grew up reading missionary stories. Hudson Taylor. Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. David Livingston. Missionaries spoke at my rural childhood church often, and I always found myself stuck between horror and awe. What would it be like to leave everything and go to … More Brown-Eyed Girl * 10 Minute Devotional
We went to the park last week and I totally forgot to bring snacks. Rule #1 of parenting is always have enough snacks. Always, always, alwaysalwaysalways. My firstborn asked for a snack and I suddenly realized I’d left the bag in our entryway at home. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “The snacks are at … More Again Tomorrow * 10 Minute Devotional
My sisters and I grew up attending Christmas Eve services at a rural evangelical church in the northern woods of Wisconsin. It was as picturesque as that sounds–snowy woods filled with evergreens and white-tailed deer and birch trees. After the services every kid was given a brown paper bag filled with candy and an orange, though … More An Unconventional Christmas Eve * Advent Devotional
You guys, I’ve never met Aubry Smith but we are friends. How can you NOT be friends with someone who has traveled halfway around the world to serve and educate pregnant and postpartum women AND written an awesome book about God’s role in childbirth? So pleased to be able to share her brilliant and beautiful … More Advent for the Outsider * Advent Devotional
Courtney Ellis 