Prairie Pastoral

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

  • Home
  • Bio
  • Books I’m Reading
  • Good Stuff

August 23, 2018 | Leave a Comment

What Facebook—and Twitter, Instagram, and (maybe even) Snapchat—can teach about witnessing to Jesus

Today is my anniversarissy. That’s not a typo. “Anniversarissy” is the word formed by combining “anniversary” and “Missy” (my legal first name), and it’s the word my then-boyfriend-now-husband invented to celebrate the day when we first began dating. It happened on August 23, 1990, and we haven’t fallen apart yet.

Screen Shot 2018-08-23 at 1.44.57 PM

In celebration of this, our 28th anniversarissy, I posted a message to Facebook about it. I wrote much of the same things I just shared, along with a photo taken just a few years after that fateful day. I don’t have a photo of us on August 23, 1990, since that was long before the days of cell phones and the ubiquitous selfie.

Why did I post it? That’s an interesting question. [Read more…]

Discipleship, Evangelism, Family, Marriage Tagged: evangelism, marriage, social media, witness


April 27, 2016 | Leave a Comment

Boy meets girl

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy loses girl. That ought to be the end of it, but then boy wins girl back. Or so the story goes.

What seems so normal to us really isn’t. In the covenant of marriage, we ask a man and a woman, two completely different people with completely different desires, fears, temperaments, histories, and hopes, to vow to make a life together. Sometimes, sadly, [Read more…]

Marriage Tagged: dirty dishes, romance, service


November 11, 2015 | Leave a Comment

In celebration of constancy

God’s steadfastness—His constancy—is the quality of God’s love upon which we can rest our weary heads and wake to work another day, upon which we trust in ourselves and our futures, upon which we step out confidently to fulfill the purposes God has given us.

Daniel James Brown’s book, “Boys in the Boat,” is the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 Olympic victory in rowing. They were 9 working class boys from western Washington, competing against the best, most elite teams in the East and in Great Britain, with races literally rigged to make them lose, as they rowed their hearts out under the gaze of Adolf Hitler. And they won.

The book is about the team and their sport, of course, but, more than that, it’s about one member of the team, Joe Rantz, the unlikeliest boy in the boat. Joe was poor, desperately so, and all but abandoned by his father and his new wife.

The bright spot in Joe’s life was his one true love, Joyce. She made a vow, writes Brown, “come what may, she would make sure he never went through anything like it again, would never again be abandoned, would always have a warm and loving home.”

[Read more…]

Discipleship, God, Marriage, Prayer Tagged: Boys in the Boat, constancy, prayer


Next Page »
This is the day that
the Lord has made;
let us rejoice
and be glad in it.

– Psalm 118:24

Rev. Dr. MJ Romano

Categories

  • Adoption
  • Advent
  • Angels
  • Christmas
  • Church
  • Courage
  • Criticism
  • Deception
  • Discipleship
  • Evangelism
  • Family
  • Fear
  • Frustration
  • God
  • Gospel of John
  • Gospel of Luke
  • Holy Week
  • Hope
  • Jesus Christ
  • Leadership
  • Legacy
  • Lent
  • Marriage
  • Old Testament
  • Parenting
  • Praise
  • Prayer
  • Predestination
  • Psalms
  • Racism
  • Remembrance
  • Repentance
  • Sacraments
  • Small town
  • Social media
  • Spiritual maturity
  • Suffering
  • Teenagers
  • Time
  • Trust
  • Truth
  • Uncategorized

Connect with MJ

Subscribe to Pastor MJ's Blog

Stay up-to-date with the latest posts delivered right to your inbox.

Join 362 other subscribers

Archives

Bible Verse of the Day

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:35
DailyVerses.net
LaJunta Presbyterian Church

Copyright © 2021 Rev. Dr. MJ Romano · Site design and setup by The Design Diva · Log in