Michelle Ruddell

It wasn't twelve stones from a riverbed, but it was a reminder of God's miraculous work in my life. I stumbled across this memento while looking for a scripture to accompany a blog post. I reached for a small red Bible that was on the shelf above my computer. (I don't...

At the clap of thunder my dog Pumpkin came running. He jumped into my lap and climbed onto my shoulders. He is terrified of loud noises—also leashes, any type of cord, and the vacuum cleaner. He shakes and pants until the noises stop. He doesn't trust me when I tell...

"You're going to make wrinkles in your forehead," the voice of my mother played in my mind as I walked out of the bus station. As part of a ministry called Light in the Gap, I had just been with a group who meet, visit, and pray with women just released from prison....

I couldn't believe my eyes. There it was. The popular expression that I was determined to eliminate from my children's vocabulary was printed in big bold letters across the front of my friend's t-shirt.  I couldn't ever imagine her using that exclamation, much...

"I married him twice." The revelation of this shocking detail results in some interesting looks on the faces of those who hear it. Efforts to keep their jaws from dropping and their eyebrows from raising contort their countenances into some caricature-worthy...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Genesis 1:1 NIV This was the first verse in a new scripture reading/writing plan I started on January 1. The first three words stuck in my head for several days.  New Year's Day gets all the attention,...

"I never knew you were a single mom," a woman told me as we walked across the church parking lot after a youth activity our teenagers were involved in. I considered her statement a compliment.  Her words implied to me that our family appeared normal. (What is...

I winced as I hurried across the yard. The pain in the bottom of my bare feet reminded me that there were acorns on the ground.  I was chasing the ever-elusive ten-pound chihuahua/rat terrier mix named Pumpkin. He had escaped into the front yard. No amount of...

It sneaks up on me every year. There’s a cloud that rolls over my soul right around Thanksgiving. It usually blows in with the first wintery weather. The first few years I was ready. Around the middle of November I would steel myself against the feelings I knew were...