Early on the first day of the week, after he had risen, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons” (Mark 16:9). After her earth-shattering meeting with Jesus, Mary Magdalene told his friends he was alive! Even though they didn’t believe her at first, delivering that message must have […]
Meredith Flynn
Heart of the matter
When our girls were younger, The Jesus Storybook Bible was our bedtime reading on most nights. And the story they often chose was “The Girl No One Wanted,” about Jacob’s lesser-loved wife Leah and her long struggle to be valued. In this version of the story, Sally Lloyd-Jones uses modern language to describe the differences […]
God sees and hears
I imagine Hagar was a woman at the absolute end of her rope. Any mother who has sent her child away because she can’t stand to watch him die would be utterly and ultimately without hope. And that’s exactly where she is in Genesis 21, sitting apart from her son in the desert, waiting for […]
The flip side of a clean slate
Happy New Year, Illinois Baptist readers! This year marks a pivot for the Brighter Day column. Over the next 12 months, we’ll examine the stories of 12 biblical women. We’ll let their life-changing encounters with God compel us to a fresh commitment to our own churches and communities. Speaking of community, the first woman in […]
Watching our Christmas words
When my sister and I were in elementary school, she was given a solo in our church’s Christmas program. Each verse was sung from the perspective of an animal present for the birth of Jesus—the wonder of the nativity story extended even to the non-human creatures who were there. I, being a few years older […]
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