As we wrestle against so many challenges to the heartwarming things we usually begin to emphasize as we approach the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, we at Gallagher’s Pen thought it might be good to highlight one of God’s marvelous gifts that we’re so prone to take for granted. We addressed it in an an article posted a couple of years ago, so we’re giving it an encore today. We hope it stimulates some Continue reading
Jesus Christ ~ A Deal Maker, or a Deal Breaker?
Sometimes God presents basic truths about life in simple, straightforward statements like many of those we find in Proverbs. Other times, though, God isn’t so straightforward. Sometimes, He simply tells a story and leaves it up to us to distill the underlying principles or concepts. The genius of that method is that we not only get to see the truth God wants us to absorb, but we also Continue reading
Finding a Path to Victory
As another empty screen looks back at me with its blank, intimidating stare, I feel mentally and emotionally exhausted and spiritually burdened. Like many others, I had hoped that once we got past this election, we might actually envision deliverance from this endless mountain range of uncertainties, but that was not to be. This electoral debacle has only served to Continue reading
Decision Time
A remark made in the midst of a group conversation came back to me recently. After someone shared a touching picture of a child with a puppy, one of the women in the group took a deep breath and said, “Awhh… can’t you just feel the love?” I don’t know what she might say about a scene like the one we’re facing right now, maybe something more like, “Oh, my… Can’t you just feel your toes curl under and your Continue reading
Finding Inexplicable Peace in Times of Incredible Pressure
My heart began to race as the apparatus began to move, and I instinctively grabbed the metal bar in front of me. I was entering uncharted territory that day, because until then, I had never been to an amusement park, as they were called back then, nor had I ever even seen a roller coaster, much less climbed aboard one. As the white wooden framework forming the mountainous trestle we were about to climb came into view as we pulled slowly out of the boarding area, I remembered how scary it felt to look down from the upper level of the tobacco barn back home. That was nothing compared to the dizzying height of the track ahead. Continue reading
I Have a Question . . .
The SCOTUS hearings that took place in our nation’s capital earlier this week, coupled with the way other recent news events have been handled, have made the simple matter of asking questions an issue worthy of our attention. Since human history began, questions have been an indispensable tool in the development of interactive communication. And as we’ve seen lately, the process of investigation, discovery, and learning at any level can be severely impaired or dismantled altogether when that basic process is manipulated or completely disallowed. It has also been clearly demonstrated that punctuating a sentence with a question mark doesn’t always indicate that a simple answer is all the interrogator wants to achieve. When the privilege of direct questioning isn’t categorically denied, the questions asked are sometimes designed to be used more as a means of delivering an accusation than obtaining an answer. Again and again, we have watched interviewers twist questions into something more like an “interrogatory indictment”. Continue reading
