In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation making the second Sunday in May the official National Mother’s Day in the United States. Today Mother’s Day is celebrated in over 50 Countries, though on different dates. It remains one of the most commercially significant holidays of the year. I am of the persuasion that Mother’s Day cannot be just this one day out of the year; it exists all...  Read More

“Love thy neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). This central biblical commandment emphasizes that we should treat others with the same care, respect, and concern that we naturally extend to ourselves. We focus so often on loving our neighbor as ourselves, but do we love ourselves? Do we think of ourselves as being as valuable as our neighbor? I remember many years ago, a friend asked me, “Gail, have...  Read More

One of my favorite scriptures in the Bible is, “Whom the Son has set free is free indeed” (John 8:36). Jesus sets us free from our self-centeredness, from the power of sin in our lives, from the hold Satan has on us, and from cultural captivity. Ultimately, He sets us free to be in union with Him. We have reason to rejoice, not just at Easter, but every day of our lives. We are liberated to do wha...  Read More

Long ago I stopped watching movies about our Black History dealing with the painful stories of slavery. I cringe at the horrible abuse our people went through and yet they persevered to the bitter end. Of course, other cultures have also suffered beyond words. I say that to think about how much suffering Jesus went through to redeem us from the slave block of sin. We have just come through the Eas...  Read More

"My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (1 Corinthians 12:9). The phrase in this scripture that God’s grace in sufficient, resonates with me during difficult times. This reminds me that God's grace sustains us through any and all hardships. It offers strength, comfort, and assurance that our God is trustworthy in all circumstances. Because the Lord is alive nothi...  Read More

The following is part two of a letter to Simon of Cyrene that was written by Joseph McAuley (assistant editor of the magazine “America”) on March 26, 2016: “…Carrying a cross demands everything a person has and in doing so, Jesus went to the boundaries of endurance and beyond, when he could endure no more and offered himself totally. He became the receptacle of humanity’s untold sins, crushed for ...  Read More