When the Menu is Manna

  We had been driving for hours. Finally, in the distance, we could see the long-awaited exit ahead that would lead us to a few hours of blissful sleep. With a one-month-old in tow, I was so relieved. We had reached our destination, or so we thought only to be nose to nose with a detour sign at our planned exit. My spirit sank as we began the drive down the winding road moving further and further away from the hotel we had almost reached until it resembled a tiny dot in the distance. What was intended to be a short interruption in our travel turned into a two-hour ordeal! We circled around the city, confused by the major construction in the darkness with no clearly marked path to our destination. Repeatedly, we missed our exit and wandered around for a long time before finding our destination just a short distance from the original detour. Thousands of years ago, another group of people missed their exit. En route to the promised land of Canaan, the Israelites, lacking faith, took ...

                                                                                                              I t was a small and simply painted, ceramic nativity scene. Purchased at the local drugstore for less than $10.00 around 25 years ago, I needed something tangible and visual to teach my girls the truth of the Nativity. Year after year the figurines found their place on our living room coffee table. Due to much loving on them and handling them in play, we had a few casualties. Joseph was the first to go when somehow, he lost his head. This alteration of his appearance just didn’t do the story justice. A headless Joseph in the scene was a little too creepy and brought about questions I wasn’t quite ready to add...

  Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 N azareth was a small town, and it was just a matter of time until the “Talk” would make its way to the gathering places. She was young, betrothed, pregnant and unmarried. If that was not enough of a dilemma, her fiancé was not the father of the child she carried. She was prepared for the whispers in the marketplace, the heckling among the fishermen unloading their boats laden with an early morning catch and the shaming looks of the older, wiser women who were certain she was now worthless. She had been fortunate as most young girls of this day were not to have been taught the scriptures. She knew the words of the prophet, spoken to the people of Judah so many years before. Though she knew them, never had she considered that she would be the one to fulfill them. Yet here she was. In this moment, was prophecy coming to pass? Was it ...