This is a season of contention. On so many fronts there are calls to take sides, whether it’s this party or that party, this theological position or the opposing, this side of a debate or another. It seems conflicts are endless. It’s exhausting, quite frankly. And part of the problem is that there is so much worth fighting for.

The bitter orange trees that line our street now fill our house with the sweet fragrance of blossoming. The winter wind that makes mild temperatures feel colder is warming. And trees once bare as the buildings around now bear buds, fresh and green. Spring has come. The season of renewing, reviving, resurrection. The season of rebirth. “Reneixament” in Catalan.

It’s no secret that our family’s move to Spain has not been a speedy process. There have been years and years of delays and long periods when the way forward did not seem clear at all. Now that we are finally here in Barcelona as residents, I have been mediating on the meaning of waiting through the perspective of all we have faced over the years to get here.

For several years my family and I have struggled and fought to follow a call from the Lord to work for His kingdom in the city of Barcelona, Spain. It has been a trail fraught with difficulty, doubt, and questions. But one frequent question we’ve received from others is, “Why Spain?”

There’s a common platitude at times such as this. As platitudes are, it’s meant for comfort, for normalizing something that feels so abnormal. It’s meant to ease the pain of the reality we are facing. And I don’t want to shame anyone for it, many of you have said it this week, many have said, “Death is just a part of life.”

In general, I try not to think or talk too much about things I hate. I try not to hate things. But of course there are a few exceptions (spiders being one, but too creepy to even think of writing about). To those who know me, it likely comes as no surprise that I hate yard work.

This is the heart of sacrifice and mission. True life in Jesus only comes through the death of Jesus first, and then in us as we follow. Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. Life only comes through death.

I joke. Nay, I should say, I joke a lot. My specialty is subtle plays with words and feigned misunderstanding that can easily pass for me just being mistaken, or stupid.  Quite often they take a minute to get, or they’re so subtle as to go unnoticed. But several years ago…

Jesus doesn’t command me to not be a racist.

He goes much further than that. He commands me to LOVE my neighbor, and even more than that to love my ENEMY…

…In many ways, our God is a canyon. We often think of him or want him to be as a mountain, mighty and powerful and looming unmistakably and irrefutably on the horizon. Yet often, though indeed mighty and powerful, He only shows himself to us when we draw near…

One morning, while leading our homeschool co-op pre-school devotionals, I noticed that our verse of the day was not as simple as I had come to expect…

Sometimes you go to the zoo, or you’re working in the yard, or just somewhere dry and hot, and you forget to drink any water. You don’t realize how parched you are until you get home, pour yourself a huge quart sized mason jar full of water, ignore what spilled on the counter, and drink the entire thing at one go…

At one point during our recent holiday travels, Ennelin’s little voice piped up from the backseat of the car to ask a question which had clearly been on her mind since the communion service at church on Christmas Eve.

“Mama, why do we eat Jesus’ body and drink His blood?”

The thing about a big city is that there are a lot of people.  And those people can quickly become a sea of people, each of which it’s easy to lose in said sea…

When Moses sent spies into Canaan, they came back with a report. All of the spies saw the same things, much fruit, much beauty, many obstacles, etc. Yet they returned to give very different reports. Why?