What turns the 4th Thursday of November into Thanksgiving? Turkey? I know one family who doesn’t like turkey. Their traditional Thanksgiving meal is Vietnamese carryout. But whatever our food traditions, is that all there is? Not if we plan real thanks into the day.

If we want to give thanks, we need only two things. Something we’re thankful for and somebody to thank. Seems so obvious, but I think I need to say it because it’s amazing how many people can say, “I’m thankful for _____ ,” without admitting that God is there to hear their thanks. And they’re certainly not giving him credit for whatever it is they’re enjoying.

Maybe we can get ready for Thanksgiving by giving someone el…

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I haven’t been able to phone my dad on Father’s Day for more than 15 years. But I remember him today. And as years pass, the things that were hard seem smaller and the strong roots of my father’s life seem more and more important.

For Daddy’s funeral, my husband wrote a poem remembering the strength of Daddy’s life. Psalm 1 was Daddy’s favorite passage of Scripture. It was a sweet thing today to read it again and to give thanks again for a father who did his best to point me to Jesus.

In Memory of Dr. George Henry

Reflections on Psalm 1 and Joshua 24:15
by John Piper

No tree however deep the roots,
However high and green the shoots,
However strong the trunk has stood,
Or firm the…

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On my “mentors” shelf sit books by Edith Schaeffer, Ann Ortlund, Gail MacDonald, Elisabeth Elliot, and Ruth Graham. I never met Ruth Bell Graham in person. But I spent time with her through her writing. She expressed a winsome, seemingly uninhibited breadth of personality and emotion—from impertinent to pensive.

Many Advent seasons, I read aloud to my children The Christmas Story (now revised and retitled, One Wintry Night). We returned to it again and again because it tells the whole Christmas story, beginning with “In the beginning.”

When I heard of Ruth Graham’s death, I pulled from that shelf her Collected Poems: Footprints of a Pilgrim. Among the many flagged pages, I found three fo…

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If you can’t walk, even with crutches, and you don’t have a wheelchair, will you stay home? Or will you find some way—any way—to get to the market and to church? How will you move without a chair?

In Cameroon, when our short-term team saw people arriving at our work sites to receive a wheelchair in the name of Jesus, we had a glimpse of what people are willing to endure in order to be mobile. Some—even adults—were carried by family members or friends. Some crawled on hands and knees. Some sat on the ground with legs pretzel-folded and used their arms as crutches. Some lay straight on the ground and dragged themselves forward in a sort of army crawl. Some moved with hands and feet on the…

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In 1929, young Elsie Viren was the efficient, capable new secretary to the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. By the time we Pipers arrived 51 years later in 1980, her days were filled with teaching Sunday school, visiting the church’s elderly and shut-ins and working 2 days a week at her manual typewriter in the office blessing all of Bethlehem’s missionaries with regular letters.

After more than 60 years devoted to the Lord and Bethlehem, it was a sad day when Elsie knew she wouldn’t be driving anymore—and later, sadder still when she couldn’t come in to the office. In the months that followed, sometimes she found my name on her “important numbers” list and called me from her room at th…

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A Month of Preparation for Easter

Ordinarily at the Piper house, we begin looking toward Easter near the beginning of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday. That was February 21 this year. During the season, we have special devotional readings each Sunday. Along with the readings, we use candles to help us symbolize what was happening as the world moved toward Jesus’ death.

On the first Sunday of Lent, which would be the 6th Sunday before Easter—February 25 this year—7 candles are burning. During the Bible reading, one is snuffed out. The 2nd Sunday’s devotional time begins with 6 candles burning and one is snuffed out during the reading, and so on through the weeks. The 7th candle is…

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If you were born with a disability or know someone who was, imagine being born in a village where that is considered to be a shameful curse from the spirits—something to hide or get rid of.

In January, I was part of the Cameroon Harvest Project 2007. This was a joint mission of Bethlehem Baptist Church and Joni and Friends International Disabilities Ministry. The purpose was to distribute wheelchairs to people for whom a wheelchair is out of reach, either because they’re not available or are way too expensive.

One of the people we met was a 6-year-old named Sandra. Her story is hard to forget.

When this little girl was born with obvious disabilities, her fearful parents took her …

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What my husband said last Sunday at the end of a sermon on forgiveness and forebearance in marriage:

Picture your marriage as a grassy field. You enter it at the beginning full of hope and joy. You look out into the future and you see beautiful flowers and trees and rolling hills. And that beauty is what you see in each other. Your relationship is the field and flowers and the rolling hills. But before long, you begin to step in cow pies. Some seasons of your marriage they may seem to be everywhere. Late at night they are especially prevalent. These are the sins and flaws and idiosyncrasies and weaknesses and annoying habits in you and your spouse. You try to forgive them an…

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I returned recently from 10 days in Cameroon, West Africa. A team of 14 was sent by Bethlehem Baptist, with the help of Joni and Friends, to distribute 100 wheelchairs through one disabilities ministry in Yaounde and one in Bamenda. There were 4 occupational or physical therapists, 4 handymen/mechanics, and the rest of us were support/go-fers.

From almost the beginning it was clear that we would fare better if we said the words, “If the Lord wills. . .” and if we really meant it.

We should have been saying, “If the Lord wills, we will arrive in Yaounde at 7:05 pm, Monday.” Instead, our plane had mechanical problems so our take-off and arrival were delayed. We arrived 26 hours l…

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