In today’s society it seems as if “likes” are equal to validation. If your post/pic/story/video/song gets “likes”, then that makes it good. If people like you, you’re cool. If people like what you do, you’re good at it. If people like the way you look, you’re beautiful.
STOP!
It’s not true.
Yes, it feels good to get likes, on and off social media. I’ve fallen prey to this culture myself. Continue reading “You Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”
(As seen in CFW Event #14)
The world where I was born is the same as yours. It’s just made of different stuff – the kind of stuff that makes dreams and myths and legends. You can’t see my world and my people can’t see yours, with the exception of brief glimpses now and then. I, however, can see both, for I am fated to walk the empty space between the worlds until the end of time. It is the sentence that I must pay for my crime. In your world it was Adam and Eve who brought the curse upon humanity. In my world…it was me. Continue reading “The Forbidden Box”
Anyone who can use the internet can blog, but it takes more than key-taps and mouse-clicks to craft a well-formed post. So here are seven easy steps to help you make a better blog.
1: Condensability
Keep it short. If you’re writing a how-to or a business blog, save your long-winded literary commentaries for another day. Stay on topic and say what needs to be said. If you go into long run-on thoughts and explanations, you’re likely to lose your readers. Continue reading “Sailing the Seven C’s of a Better Blog”
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(Last chapter from the Kindle devotional ebook Grace Like Rain.”
Grace. It’s a word often used in the realm of Christianity, but do we really understand what it means? Do we realize the depth of it?
Amazing Grace
Grace is God’s infinite love, comfort, and forgiveness of His children. Grace is the blood flowing down from the pierced body on the cross and washing away our sins, cleansing us in its purity. Grace is God’s gift offered freely to all mankind—infinite, unimaginable, amazing.
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,” Titus 2:11 Continue reading “Grace Like Rain”
(As seen in CFW Event #13)
It was the second step up to the podium that sent Marc lurching forward. He landed on a little plastic tree that had stood beside the pulpit for nine years without being attacked by a clumsy young pastor.
Deacon Barrett gave Marc a hand up and set the tree to rights before slipping back to his seat.
Marc nodded and murmured “thank you,” as he stepped to the pulpit.
He cleared his throat and pulled the microphone closer. Continue reading “Quarter-Sized Love”
(Winner of CFW Event #12)
Rylan stared at the endless expanse of Illtydian soldiers stretching out for miles across the rolling green hills of the Takuma Downs. Ominous gray thunderheads billowed in from the north, threatening a violent storm and blanketing the land in an eerie, dim blue light.
Rylan stood atop the hill to which his army had just retreated.
He could see the Illtydians reforming into lines, preparing for the next battle. Continue reading “The King’s Son”
(As seen in CFW Event #11)
The bell above the door jangled as Alicia pulled it closed. She heaved a weary sigh, locked up, and turned to go. She stopped and inhaled a deep breath of cool night air. It felt good after being cooped up inside all day. She glanced up at the bleak, smog-blanketed sky of New York. If only she could go back to the sweet days of her childhood back in Montana. Before she’d lost her parents, before her husband abandoned her and their daughter, before all the heartache and weariness that burdened her soul like iron weights crushing the life out of her. Continue reading “Angel on the Street”
(As seen in CFW Event #10)
Hezekiah Tyrell Cooper shuffled down the busy Chicago sidewalk. He was just a face in the crowd. At a glance he was a well-dressed, handsome, young, black man, probably worked at a law firm or financial corporation. If the observer were to look closer, they would see that the mouth drooped at the sides, the feet moved slow and aimlessly, and the deep brown eyes were heavy-lidded, red-rimmed, cast down in desolation at the pavement. However, even the closest observer couldn’t tell who he really was. Continue reading “Until Today”
(As featured on the back cover of the Winter 2013-2014 issue of Evangel)
She was young and scared with nowhere to turn.
She was pregnant and alone with a lot to learn.
She’d been told, “It’s your right to choose,”
But they never told her what she would lose.
She walked in for the operation,
She walked out to self-condemnation.
It was only a fetus, she told herself, It wasn’t a baby;
That’s what they say, but maybe —
Maybe they’re wrong. Continue reading “No Turning Back”
Whitney L. Schwartz 