Signs & Wonders Blog

On Father’s Day, many people spend time with their dads. Mine passed away almost seven years ago. Although I’ve had other father figures in my life, I want to honor someone who was like a mother to me. This past Wednesday, I learned she had gone home to be with the Lord. For a few weeks in 2001, I lived with a family in Manassas, Virginia. Issues came up that made it necessary for me to find alternative housing. Through a mutual friend, I moved in with another family in the nearby city of Woodbridge. The matriarch was Merrie Christina Lavikoff.  “Chris” (as she preferred to be addressed) was born in Long Island, New York but grew up in California. A stint in the U.S. Army brought her to Northern Virginia, where she met Jeffrey Lavikoff. Although Chris was Christian and Jeff was Jewish, they married and had three children: David, DebraLyn, and Emily.  While I first lived with the Lavikoffs, Chris worked at and attended Christ Chapel, an Assembly of God fellowship. I occa...

Carolyn Mae Tweiten was born on March 28, 1946. She was the second of five children who grew up in a carpenter’s family in Fargo, North Dakota. In 1963 at the age of 17, Carolyn married Richard Post and gave birth to me the following year. My sister Tanya followed a couple of years later. Because Mom loved animals, there were often one or two dogs plus an occasional cat in the household. She was also a teddy bear fanatic. That made it easy to pick out gifts for Christmas and her birthday. Carolyn had grown up with a violent alcoholic father. Therefore, she did her best to make sure Tanya and I had a stable environment at home. Mom often played along with various games my sister and me did. A few Saturday mornings, we played school with me being the teacher. Occasionally Mom would knock on my bedroom door saying Tanya needed to be “excused from class” so she could clean her room or do something else. As we got older, Mom worked outside the house more. One of her jobs was a sa...

 Thanksgiving 2008 In these last days, Satan is trying to pervert gender distinctions. Currently the media is flooded with reports of men “identifying as women” fighting for the right to use women’s bathrooms (and vice versa). For the past ten years, Spain has issued birth certificates replacing “Father” and “Mother” with “Progenitor A” and “Progenitor B.” No matter how the world tries to redefine the family unit, children cannot be born without a mother.  On this Mother’s Day, I want to honor the woman who brought me into this world 52 years ago in Fargo, North Dakota. Growing up in the bordering city of Moorhead, Minnesota, I wasn’t fond of the traditional church we attended as a family. Still my mother made sure my sister and I said our prayers before going to sleep. If there was a thunderstorm outside, Mom told us God’s angels were bowling (the loudest claps of thunder meant they got a strike). She happened to be an avid bowler. Football is another sport my mo...

Singer/actress Jessica Simpson gave birth to a daughter a few days ago.   There was some media controversy about her child being named Maxwell, which sounds more like a man’s name.   But what’s really disturbing is how children born out of wedlock are celebrated so much these days.   (Jessica is engaged to the baby’s father but decided to postpone getting married until after the baby was born.)   A couple of generations ago, illegitimate births by Hollywood celebrities were considered scandalous. Before the birth of Maxwell, Jessica Simpson appeared nude on the cover of Elle magazine displaying her baby bump (à la Demi Moore).   T he Huffington Post praised Jessica for being an example of “ modern motherhood.”   This is a sign of the times we live in.   Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Jessica was rai...