Where’s God when I’m waiting on the next Big Thing?

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Here I go again — waiting on God to provide the next Big Thing. This time it’s something different though. Fourteen years ago, I was waiting for God to provide a wife. Twelve years ago it was a new job. Three years ago, it was physical healing. A year ago, it was selling my house. This year, I’ve got another Big Thing, and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t want to wait. I want things to come easier than this. Enough with the cliffhangers. Let someone else dangle from the edge. I’d like a happy ending now. I have great…

We found treasure in the sand (and celebrated like angels)

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This week my family and I vacationed at the beach under the blazing sun, playing in the sand, jumping over the waves of the ocean, building sandcastles, and making sure to apply plenty of sunscreen. It was a challenge for my 11-year-old daughter, Giselle, for whom eyeglasses are a necessity. They’re essential for her to see clearly but the beach is the last place she needs to bring them. It’s too easy to lose them in the endless acres of sand or while playing in the crashing waves at high tide. When we got back to the parking lot yesterday,…

Christmas was hijacked by laundry detergent — but there was still reason to hope

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It was a box of laundry detergent than undid Christmas of 1988 for the Rogers family. Dad thought it would be a great idea for us to trek into the woods behind our house and cut down our very own Christmas tree. As a ten-year-old boy, it seemed like an awfully adventurous thing to do, but looking back, I suspect Dad was just trying to save money. By the time we dragged the scraggly pine tree home, there was no doubt we’d gotten what we paid for: a sentimental experience that ended when Dad propped the pitiful tree against the…

The song my dad sung when my siblings died

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The phone rang and my mom answered. She never imagined the horrific news my grandfather was about to share: My dad’s two children from his first marriage had died in a plane crash.  Scottie and Rhonie Rogers (ages 10 and 14) were last seen with their mom and stepdad on July 5, 1981, when they took off in a light airplane en route to Florida for a vacation. The plane never made it there. The newspaper reported that the plane was flying through a thunderstorm when it plunged from 11,000 feet to 4,000 feet. It dropped off the radar and…

A lesson in prayer from my daughter’s birthday excitement

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It was my daughter Layla’s ninth birthday last week, but if you’d asked her, it was more like her birthday season. Five months ago, Layla not only started talking about what gifts she wanted for her birthday— she began developing a meal plan for the big day (donuts, a Lunchable, and tacos). Layla deemed the day before her birthday, “Birthday Eve.” She went around talking about it to anyone who would listen, including a Target cashier, who thrilled Layla by correctly guessing that she was turning nine.

Take a break from COVID coverage — there’s wonderful news in your Father’s eyes

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One time when I was about eight years old, I was outside with my dad when I heard a bird chirp a three-note melody: “tweet-tweet-tweet.” I looked over at my dad and said, “That bird’s singing a song,” and then I imitated it with a whistle — “tweet-tweet-tweet.” My dad’s face warmed; he gave a soft, kind smile; and his eyes twinkled.

My wife and I made a big mistake — and I learned a valuable lesson

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We should’ve listened to the woman across the counter at the visitor center of Gorges State Park: “You probably shouldn’t take a three-year-old on the hike to Rainbow Falls. It’s a three-mile round trip with steep climbs.” My wife and I ignored her, figuring that our three-year-old would be the exception. Plus, we had our girls, eight and nine, to help along the way.

If you’ve got a calling, there’s one thing you should keep in mind

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On January 1, 2018, things were not looking good for the new year. My dad died on December 30. I was also in the middle of a months’ long treatment for a chronic illness, and the treatment had left me with ongoing physical symptoms and mood changes. With all of this swirling around me, my demanding job felt 10 times harder. It was too much. If you had asked me to list my top 25 goals for the year, “writing a book” wouldn’t have been one of them — not by a long shot. I didn’t have the time, the will,…

An unexpected answer when I asked God to end suffering in my life

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I know someone who’s trapped in a dead-end job right now. He’s been there for years and he’s trying to make the best of it, but realistically, his resume is probably far too stale for him to get a different job for which he’s qualified. I know a woman who has an ongoing chronic condition that doctors can’t fix. You’d never know it if you met her — the embarrassing symptoms, the limitations. She longs for some medical breakthrough that will fix the problem, but there’s little hope for that and for whatever reason, God hasn’t healed her.

My son needed oxygen — and I needed Jesus

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Last Friday night, my two-year-old son had a cold that suddenly started getting worse. He began coughing harder and harder, and eventually, he started wheezing. I normally would’ve deferred to my wife on something like this, but she was out of town, so I decided to wait it out. When his breathing became progressively shallow, I drove him to the emergency room in the middle of the night. They told me that a virus had provoked a severe asthma attack.