MSI Press Blog

    Excerpt from  A Believer-in-Waiting  by Elizabeth Mahlou.  A Simple Grace It all began with prayer, but which prayer began it all I do not know. It may have been the grace I was coerced into saying five years ago. Or, it may have been the prayer of my sister Danielle five decades earlier. I used to think it was the former. Now, in reviewing the whole expanse of my life, I rather think it may have been the latter.   Danielle’s Prayer The “8-pack,” a moniker given to my seven younger siblings and me by my brother Rollie, suffered immense abuse during our childhood. My sister Katrina, in fact, never planned on growing up, certain that she would be killed by Ma before achieving adulthood. However amazing, we all did survive the extensive physical abuse (e.g., being stabbed, thrown into walls, kicked into unconsciousness, pulled down flights of stairs by the hair, and much more), emotional abuse (e.g., being negatively compared with each other, denigrated at...

  From Arthur Yavelberg, author of A Theology for the Rest of Us -- Not So Still, Small Voice In times of terrible tragedies—whether personal or world-wide—many in the West think of the Bible and pray.  While the text of the prayer may be general–”Please fix this!”–there is usually the hope that there will be some dramatic, divine intervention—much like, say, God splitting the Red Sea in the Book of  Exodus .  However, while there are many examples of such miracles in both the Old and the New Testaments, there are also accounts where God’s presence is not at all obvious.  For instance, in the Book of Genesis, the  Joseph  of “The Coat of Many Colors” fame is despised by his brothers, sold into slavery and spends years in an Egyptian dungeon—only to rise to power by the side of the Egyptian vizier, save the lands from a devastating drought and rescue his family.  As Joseph tells his bewildered brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended i...

  CHANGE OF HEART “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” --Ezekiel 36: 26   “I hate change!” If I received a dollar for every time a patient said that to me, I could work for free.   They often add, “Change replaces the familiar with the unknown. The unknown scares me.” In response, I remind my anxious patients, “If there is no change, you are dead. The future is always unknown, of course, because it does not yet exist. You are now in the process of creating your own future.” I also ask them,”Why are you here meeting with me, except to change?” They tell me how miserable they feel and powerless to do anything about it. Frightening change is the price of relief. Therapy is for healing and growth. Some of my patients imagine that their trying life circumstances cause their distress. In our work together they learn that only changing their minds and hearts, their ...