Author Archives: Monica Bass

Too Valuable to Waste

Four years ago tonight I received a startling phone call from my grandma.

“Pray for Amanda,” she began. “I don’t have all of the details, but she was in a skiing accident—hit a tree, I think—and is being rushed to the hospital.”

Amanda (pictured above, left, with her sister Allison) is my cousin—my mom’s sister’s daughter. Sixteen years old at the time, she was with her high school ensemble on their way to sing at a youth conference. En route, the group stopped for a planned skiing activity.

A few minutes after that first call, Grandma called again. Before she could even say it, I knew. Through a tight throat and tears she said what none of us ever wanted to hear, “Our Amanda is in Heaven.”

That was four years ago, and I still miss Amanda. Just this past Christmas, as our extended family gathered, I thought of Amanda and her bubbly enthusiasm that would have been overflowing into every activity, every conversation, every event that she engaged in. Continue reading →

My Greatest Highlight of 2012

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[I wrote the article below for the website Ministry127. It’s a great website with free resources and ideas to encourage and equip leaders in church ministry.]

March 7, 2012—it was the beginning highlight for what would become the delight of my year.

That evening, I had the joy to begin leading a young Christian through our church’s formal discipleship program.

What is discipleship?

It is a front row seat in seeing God’s Spirit bring growth.
It is a fresh reminder of the depth and grace of God’s love.
It is spiritual energy as you observe a tender heart for God and growth in His grace.
It is the incredible opportunity to work with God’s Spirit in pressing the button to watch a miracle of His grace unfold in a life.
It is the perfect vantage point from which to watch God’s Word change a life…at the deepest levels of the heart.
It is an indescribable joy to participate with God in His work.
It is…my favorite event of the week!

Continue reading →

Crossing the Halfway Mark toward the Best Resolution I Ever Made

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“I have just finished reading the Bible through, today, for the fortieth time in forty years.”—Hudson Taylor

I remember like it was yesterday when I read that quote (from Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, page 240). I could take you to the exact spot in our basement where I was sitting when those words tugged my heart.

Actually, they didn’t tug. They captured. They resolved.

I was thirteen or fourteen years old, and something inside of me said, “If Hudson Taylor could read the Bible through once a year for forty years, I can too. And in forty years, I want to be able to say the same.”

Yesterday, I reached the halfway mark—twenty times through. Continue reading →

If You Were in a Christmas Carol…

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If I could insert myself into one of our Christmas hymns, I think I’d see myself as one of the shepherds on the hillside or the three kings of orient. Maybe I could pretend I was that mother mild. With a greater stretch of imagination, I could join the choir of herald angels.

But without even needing to imagine myself in the scene, I actually am mentioned in one of the carols. Not by name, of course (my name is not Gloria), but by affiliation. It’s in the third stanza of “Joy to the World,” the line that reads “far as the curse is found.”

That’s me. The curse reaches me.

The curse set off by sin enshrouds our world and touches every aspect of life as we know it. Merry as Christmas is, even holidays are beset by pain from the curse. What family circle has not been touched by divorce, cancer, or separation—pain of any sort is a direct or indirect result of the curse.

But it gets worse. The curse reaches deep in my own heart. And I’m not imagining here. Reality is, I’m not an angel—or even eligible to apply as an angelic candidate. Yes, the curse reaches me.

But that’s exactly why this line of “Joy to the World” is my favorite, because it reminds me that Jesus “comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.” If the curse reaches me, so do the blessings!

I, of all people, have great reason to rejoice that the Lord is come!

“Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20)!

The Turn Key Word of the Christmas Story (and mine)

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It’s the fiction writer’s staple, but we seldom anticipate it to grace our own daily reality. In fact, our low expectations reveal how little we understand our God’s ways.

In truth, we serve a God of miracles (hello, just read Luke 2), but our tendency when peering into the future is to predict it based on the rate of past progress. We pray desperately for God to do what we can’t, then we rise from our knees, look at the date the prayer request was first entered, and sigh. “Not gonna happen, at least anytime soon,” we feel, even if we don’t say.

But some years ago, a friend pointed out a truth to me that pierces through hazy doubts. Her statement echoed so deeply in my heart, that I’ve been noticing it illustrated in Scripture ever since. Here it is:

God doesn’t usually move immediately; He moves suddenly.

I have a pretty good inner clock, so I easily think God’s late, behind time, letting “perfect” opportunities for action slip by. But just outside your and my line of sight, He is preparing in ways we can’t see. Continue reading →

Freedom from a Mechanized Christmas

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One of my most-anticipated Christmas traditions is a personal ritual. Our family is often at my grandma’s house on Christmas morning, and she has a large barn with a great hayloft. Each year, I try to find a moment when the coast is clear and slip out to the barn for a few minutes of quiet reflection.

If you’re not familiar with barns, let me tell you, there’s not much in a pile of hay to inspire awe. Really. It smells good (which is nice), but I’ve never been one to worship hay. But on Christmas morning, when you settle into a pile of loose hay, rest your back against hay bale, and read the Christmas story with the light coming in from the crow’s nest above…it evokes worship. It brings a fresh realization that God was born into…of all things, hay. He chose to enter our world through a stable. It’s humbling. It’s a stirring reminder of the depth of Jesus’ love.

I wish every Christian I know could experience Christmas morning in the barn.

It’s easy—more accurately the norm—for the month of December to turn into something like a grueling marathon of activity and exhaustion. December is rich in activates and overflowing in opportunities for outreach. Parties, ministry, shopping, family…it’s all wonderful. But it makes for a challenging schedule. And if we’re not careful, we can move through it like machines—going through the motions of the Christmas schedule. Continue reading →

You Can’t Climb That High

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It’s a real bummer to be very competitive and very afraid of heights—especially when you’re a kid and your older sister loves heights and thrill.

The competitive side of me would say, “If someone else can do it, there’s no reason why I can’t too.” The scared of heights side of me would argue, “Yes, but you are about to fall and die.” (I know, fear is irrational. Most people don’t die from climbing to the top of the swing set and jumping down.)

Sometimes the competitive side won, and I would will myself to climb in spite of my fears. And sometimes the scared of heights side won, and I would say I didn’t really want to climb that day. (Actually, the scared of heights side always won because even if I climbed up, I suffered escalating stages of terror before I made it back down to the ground!) Continue reading →

Half Poured & Overflowing

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I set out at the beginning of November to write a blog post every day about one of the attributes of God for which I’m thankful. I even called it NaThaMo.

Well, if you’ve been following the posts, you know that I am now five days behind (besides having missed letters J and M). In fact, I’m far enough behind that I’ve conceded I won’t finish out the month.

In assessing this “failure,” I determined to look at the month as half-full instead of half-empty. “Hey,” I told myself, “at least you did half of the letters.”

And then it hit me. Continue reading →

Closer than You Think

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Note: This blog is part of a Thanksgiving series of blogs highlighting attributes of God for which I am thankful.

Have you ever felt alone? Forsaken? Abandoned? Forgotten?

There’s a pathos in Psalm 142:4 that I think we can all identify with: “I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.”

And perhaps you’ve felt a similar anguish to Job’s when he seemed to search for God’s presence in vain: “Behold, I go forward,” he cried out, “but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him” (Job 32:8–9)

If you’re there right now, could I tell you something? Continue reading →

Nothing, Nothing at All

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Note: This blog is part of a Thanksgiving series of blogs highlighting attributes of God for which I am thankful.

What can make God stop loving me? What can separate me from His love? What can dim or cloud the intensity of His love for me?

Please read the answer very slowly: nothing, nothing at all.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.—Romans 8:35, 37-39

I’m thankful for God’s love.

Sometimes I forget about it.

Sometimes I live as if I must earn it. Continue reading →