Few convictions run deeper in the pro-life movement than its care for the mother. It has built pregnancy centers, staffed the hotlines, and opened its homes, and it has insisted, rightly, that a woman in crisis is someone to be loved. That care shapes its laws as well, and in one particular place it shapes them in a way few in the movement have examined closely enough.

The movement holds two convictions about the mother, and it holds them both with a good conscience. The first is that a woman who ends the life of her child has murdered her child. The second is that a woman who conceives a child should carry that child to birth. Both flow from a single certainty, that the child is real and the child is hers. Take the first conviction at its word and a plain question follows. If a woman who aborts her child has in fact murdered her child, should she be treated as a murderer or not? The movement flinches from the question, and it has rarely stopped to ask why.

Does the doctrine of the Trinity make you think of some theologian or Bible scholar speaking fancy words? Well, I got news for you. The doctrine of the Trinity is not just something in our confession of faith. It is the way God reveals Himself to us in His Word. Even more important it’s the foundation of our salvation, our fellowship with God, and our daily comfort as Christians. Every believer already depends upon the Trinity every single day, whether recognizing it or not.

Of the seven deadly sins, sloth is the one we are surest we understand. We picture laziness, idleness, the avoidance of work. Yet that picture barely reaches the surface of what Scripture and the church fathers named. The sin they warned against runs deeper and lies closer to home than most of us suspect.

Paul's confidence was never in polished speech or impressive language. His confidence rested in the power of the gospel. The message is what saves people, not the messenger's ability to sound eloquent. That should be the desire of every shepherd and every believer sharing the gospel. We are not called to impress people. We are called to feed people….

At 56 years old, here I thought I knew pain. Ha! Um...no. Let me tell you, this has been the absolute most painful and difficult time in my life. Ever.

I'm so sorry for ever dismissing, in my mind and without prayer, anyone who told me they had or have shingles, as if it was just a simple "painful" rash.

I'll be perfectly open and honest with you: this situation caused my depression and anxiety to surface. All I could hear was my own voice. Why me? How could God let this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Me, me, me.