As our adopted granny lay in her hospital bed after suffering several strokes her doctors were unsure of the amount of brain damage she had endured They needed to wait until she was a bit better to test her brain function She spoke very few words and even fewer were understandable But when the -year-old woman who had babysat my daughter for twelve years saw me she opened her parched mouth and asked ldquo How is Kayla rdquo The first words she spoke to me were about my child whom she had loved so freely and fully Jesus loved children [... more]

The summer after my sophomore year of college a classmate died unexpectedly I rsquo d seen him just a few days prior and he looked fine We and our classmates were young and in what we thought was the prime of our lives having just become sisters and brothers after pledging our respective sorority and fraternity But what I remember most about my classmate rsquo s death was witnessing my fraternity friends live out what James calls true religion The men in his fraternity became like brothers of the sister of the deceased They attended her wedding and traveled to [... more]

Just one Sunday after I rsquo d started working as a youth leader at a church and had met several of the young people I spoke to a teen seated next to her mom As I greeted the shy girl with a smile I said her name and asked how she was doing She lifted her head and her beautiful brown eyes widened She too smiled and said in a small voice ldquo You remembered my name rdquo By simply calling that young girl by name mdash a girl who may have felt insignificant in a church filled with adults [... more]