Author Ava Pennington
Author Ava Pennington

Give Up or Give Out?

We’re more than halfway through the season known as Lent. In many churches, Lent is observed as a forty day period of prayer and introspection leading to Easter. It’s also a traditional time of fasting, when some Christians give up a favorite food or activity in an...

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Do Animals Go To Heaven?

This week we said a painful goodbye to our second rescue boxer, Romer. Like his sister, he died just shy of his eleventh birthday. As we mourn his absence, I can’t help but wonder if we will see our pets again. I wrote about this in a blog post two years ago, when we...

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A Month of Love!

February is thought of as the month of love, with Valentine’s Day taking center stage. But Cupid’s arrows have little to do with true love. You and I have the capacity for deep and abiding love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Because we are the recipients of...

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What Makes You Feel Old?

I recently learned they’ve stopped teaching cursive writing in most schools. Print? Yes. Script? Not anymore. No longer are children learning how to link the letters of each word in a continuous flow. But it’s not just the children. When was the last time you...

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How Do You Handle Disappointment?

New year. New possibilities. Good thing, too, because many of us look back on various events in the old year and say, “Good riddance!” Still, despite the “Happy New Year” greetings, disappointments will follow us into the new year, too. So what do we do with them? For...

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Weather or Not…

“Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh…” We strolled from house to house, singing out familiar and beloved Christmas carols. Caroling is one of my favorite Christmas activities, but this year something just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t the houses. They...

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Favorite Christmas Tradition

I am an unabashed Christmasphile. I play Christmas carols in July - in Florida! We set up our Christmas tree no later than the day after Thanksgiving. Of course, if it were up to me, the tree would be displayed weeks earlier, but my husband is the voice of reason in...

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My Own Angel

Every day of the Christmas season is magical when you’re eight years old. Bright lights, colorful decorations, dazzling trees, gaily-wrapped gifts, and mouth-watering treats combine to create an enchanting time from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. But the second...

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Christmas Memories

Putting up our Christmas decorations is a simple enough task. Bring in the boxes from the garage and spread their contents around the house. It should take a day at most. But it’s not so simple for me because of the memories evoked by the decorations and ornaments......

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An Attitude of Gratitude

There’s a saying traveling the internet these days that goes something like this: “What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?” (Was that as convicting for you as it was for me?) In keeping with this theme of thanksgiving, I’d like to...

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