Author Ava Pennington
Author Ava Pennington

Public Discourse vs. Public DisCOARSE

Social media and the evening news are both making me tired. Sad. Discouraged. Done. Today, I hit my limit. A friend posted a link announcing the president had signed an executive order correcting a difficult, complicated, and sad policy. (I’m not taking a politically...

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Mate for Life

I never thought a sandhill crane would make me cry. A pair of sandhill cranes were living in our little corner of the neighborhood for the last year. It seems fitting, since they happen to be the logo of our development. We’ve watched them establish a routine....

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The Weight of Our Words

When Hurricane Irma blew through south Florida last September, we were fortunate not to sustain damage to our home. But the natural environment did not fare as well. Trees toppled all around us. Hurricane force winds snapped off branches and uprooted trees. Root balls...

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Friendships that Sharpen Me

According to Facebook, I have more than a thousand friends. Some of them I’ve never met in person. Many are acquaintances. Some are closer friends. Then there are the friendships that go deeper. These are the relationships that have stood the test of time. Friendships...

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Christians, Please Stop Saying That

Last week another hurricane hit Florida. But it wasn’t just another hurricane. Irma is the most powerful storm to ever come out of the Atlantic. So large, it covered the whole state, coast to coast. The. Whole. State. We endured Category 1 winds on the east coast....

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A New Way to Express Kindness

Kindness is a virtue most of us appreciate and many of us aspire to. You may have heard about the practice of random acts of kindness. It supposedly began in 1982 when Anne Herbert scrawled the words "practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty" on a...

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Another Summer Prayer Request

She did it again. Last summer, I blogged about a friend whose prayer request resonated with me. She wanted to use her summer break to “Love Deeply, Care Openly, Share Boldly”—a request that became my own that summer, too. Her request this year also touched me. She...

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Separate or Salty?

Come out and be separate. No. Go out and be salty. Which is it? Are we to be separate or salty? As our society continues to distance itself from its Judeo-Christian roots, Christians find themselves more and more detached from the mainstream by our values. The march...

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