This will be the second Mother’s Day since my Mom died. This is a piece that I wrote right after her death. It is a story of incredible grace and redemption. I pray that it will encourage some of you who have a difficult relationship with your Mom.

My book "I'm OK--You're Not" (about the inherently tricky relationship between The Great Commandment and The Great Commission) is nominated for a 2008 San Diego Book Award. If I go to the SDBA awards event, my father will be with me. I don't think I saw my father five times between the time I was 17 and 45 years old.

It is so interesting to look back over the landscape of three decades plus of my journey with Jesus. I can see God’s hand in so many events and even heartbreaks in my life. My early church experience was a broken road of legalistic and judgmental Christians who crushed the spirit of a young and fumbling Christian. That experience became the basis of my books.

We need a national marriage amendment and we need it now. But what will happen if marriage is left up the states? Do we have any examples of what might happen if states continue to pass conflicting laws concerning marriage? The current conflict between Virginia and Vermont may well serve as a harbinger of what is to come if we continue to refuse to address marriage at the federal level.