life. faithful.

  Thousands of years ago, centuries before the brilliant minds of Galileo, Newton, Schrodinger, and Einstein helped to reveal hidden aspects of the universe, the men God used to write the Scriptures tucked physics into the pages. Have you ever noticed it? We'll start at the smallest level, with subatomic particles. There are people who study these and have named all sorts of particles out there, but we'll just focus on the main 3: protons, neutrons, and electrons. For all practical purposes, these 3 particles in different combinations make up everything in our universe, from the sun to the flowers to you. So these tiny, invisible particles? They are talked about in Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we understand that the universe was created at God's command, so that what was seen was made of what was unseen." So these tiny particles can be thought of as tiny little one-sided magnets. Neutrons are neutral, so we'll ignore them right now, but protons and electrons are lik...

When my daughter was about 3, she would have told you, without hesitation, that she wasn't a little girl--she was a puppy. She would be a puppy at the grocery store , much to my embarrassment. She was committed, let me tell you. There was more than once that we had to get onto her for licking somebody or for barking in response to a question she was asked, or to tell her to get up off the floor and walk on her feet instead of crawling on all fours. Why do I bring that up? Because we have somehow decided that kids are capable of making life-altering decisions when they are at an age when it used to be considered completely developmentally normal for them to pretend to be any number of things, from a puppy to a train. What has never been normal, though, is to tell a child that they actually are whatever they are pretending to be. Now, though, we're supposed to go along with whatever someone is pretending to be.  We've come to a point in our society where it has somehow be...

Our kids are under attack, and it seems like we're just going along with it. I don't mean from violence like the recent school shooting that devastated a community and has left so many families reeling. Things like that are obvious, and we have no issue taking a stand against them. We may not know exactly what we need to do, but we all agree that it is something we can't tolerate. What I'm talking about is something more subtle. What I'm talking about is a battle for the souls of our children, and it's a battle the enemy seems to be fighting with no resistance from those of us who are supposed to the protectors. When was the last time you watched something that promoted traditional, Christian values? Something that didn't show "alternative" lifestyles or people hopping into bed with each other as things that are totally normal and acceptable? Or maybe the more important question, when was the last time you stopped watching a tv show or movie with y...

I'm not an "anti-vaxer"--you know, just to get that out there. I'm a science nerd. Growing up I loved TLC because they showed surgeries; I loved watching science documentaries and shows like Nova; my bachelor's degree is in physics with a minor in biology; I studied medical physics in grad school before adding in education. I am thankful for the knowledge and wisdom God granted those who developed vaccines and am incredible thankful that we have them in place to ward off what used to be common childhood diseases like mumps and measles. I'm thankful the polio vaccine has resulted in so much less heartbreak. But... If you know me, you probably knew that was coming. There is a huge governmental push for everyone to receive a Covid vaccine. Now that push has extended down to 12-year olds and to be honest with you, that thought terrifies me. As of May 12th, the CDC shows a provisional count of 2,139 deaths attributed to Covid for those under 17 (1). That's a th...

I've written about what I believe --we were challenged to do so many years ago at a church we had started attending. It was something I had never been challenged to do before, and I would encourage you to do the same. I've also written my testimony, probably more times than I can count (I grew up in a Baptist church, after all). It's been updated time and again, which should always be the case if you ask me because I should always be learning more about God and realizing what He has done for me (which is somewhere I very much fall short). Today, though, I realized that I've never sat down and thought about why I believe. Honestly, that's not a simple task. It seems like why is always the most complex question to answer. My first why comes from something most of us use as a basis for belief--it's what I've been taught, and the people I learned from were/are trustworthy. As Paul wrote to Timothy: "So surely you ought to stick to what you know is c...

There's a big emphasis lately on the wedge that's constantly being driven between faith and science. It seems like people think you can only have one or the other ( I've written about it a few times ), and somehow if you cling to one you have to push the other away by default. I hear people talk about science in such strange ways, and it comes from people on both sides of the conversation-- "I don't trust science because it's just trying to take the place of God." "It doesn't matter what you think, it's science and you have to trust science." If you ask me, both statements are equally ignorant. I'm a huge fan of science--I've spent a huge chunk of my life so far learning as much about it as I could (and cried way too many tears over the parts I didn't understand), and I'm one of those nerds who lights up when somebody asks me a question about it. Honestly, I get lost enough in answering that it usually takes me a w...

Dear Daughters, Right now, the media (social and otherwise) is full of commentary from women about the Super Bowl halftime show. There are hateful words being spewed from both sides of the argument (a sad truth in any argument today--people seem to have forgotten how to communicate respectfully with each other), women who are accusing the other side of not honoring or respecting women. So what are you, a young lady trying to find your place in the world as you grow into a woman, supposed to think? Let me be one more voice--maybe a quiet one, but one I think you should hear--both in regards to the halftime show and that one pesky "make space for women" commercial. Okay, the elephant in the room--halftime. I'm going to be that crazy person that tells you not everything has to be one extreme or the other. In this case, that means there was good and bad in that show. First, that performance was by two women who put on quite a display of athleticism. If you've eve...

"Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking. The Voice was and is God. This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator; His speech shaped the entire cosmos. Immersed in the practice of creating, all things that exist were birthed in Him. His breath filled all things with a living, breathing light-- A light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazes through murky bottoms. It cannot and will not be quenched." ~John 1: 1-5 Unbelievable, indescribable power is displayed in God speaking all of creation into existence. This power, above and outside of everything we can imagine, simply had to breathe for life to begin teeming across the surface of the earth. Besides that, this Voice whispered the cosmos into being. Think about that for a second. Taking a line from Star Trek (because I'm a nerd): "Space: the final frontier..." I'm not sure what the purpose of my physics degrees is or will be, but I'm tha...

I saw something this morning that I've never seen before--a rainbow in the middle of the sunrise. Believe it or not, I've seen a lot of sunrises. When Pop and I would milk in the mornings, we got to watch quite a few of them. There were even a couple of times when I was in the milk barn when Pop came in and had me stop to walk outside and watch the sun come up. Every sunrise I've seen was beautiful; if you haven't seen one in a while, it wouldn't hurt to take the time to get up early one day and watch. It's a whole different world at that time of the day--it's quiet and calm and gorgeous. I've seen amazing rainbows in the past. In our little corner of the Ozarks last spring, we got to see a double rainbow that stretched from one side of the sky to the other, touching bright green rolling hills on each end. The bright colors were spectacular against the bright blue sky.   This morning, though, there was something amazing about seeing the sky on ...

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Those are bold words, spoken by a man who wasn't afraid to stir things up a bit--Albert Einstein. And though it may go against my better judgment (or maybe it just makes me nervous) I'm going to take a chance at stirring things up a bit myself... I still find it hard to believe at times, but I'm in the world of science. I still hesitate to call myself a scientist and don't know if I'll ever really feel like I can call myself a physicist, but after all life's twists and turns I've found myself right in the middle of a world that somehow seems both disconnected and intricately blended with the world of faith in which I grew up. Some people, it seems, think those two worlds--one of science and one of faith--should never collide. I'm not sure what chaos they think might come about as a result, but surely it would be something terrifying and life shattering. You know wha...