After graduating from Concordia Wisconsin,
Anna taught in Lutheran schools for several years. She now homeschools
her children during the day and writes in the evening. Anna loves Jane Austen,
dark chocolate, and the Oxford comma. She likes to review the books she reads
on Goodreads,
and her work can also be found in The
Federalist.
Sister, Daughter, Mother, Wife
Living Our Vocations as Lutheran Women
Feb 9, 2021
Why I’m Grateful to My Friends for Cleaning Their Houses
Jan 20, 2021
Praying for My Children--and All the Baptized
Now that my son is a year and a half old and has heard daily prayers and weekly attends Divine Service with us, a sweet glimmer of his young faith seems to be shining. Almost daily, he will find our home hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book used in church, flip through the pages and “sing.”
Image source.
Dec 10, 2020
What I Want for Christmas
My husband and I never thought our children would leave the church. We had them baptized shortly after birth, went with them to church and Sunday School each Sunday, held family devotions, read Bible lessons, prayed with them, and sent them to Lutheran day school. It never occurred to us they would leave the church altogether.
But they did leave. There are reasons or excuses, depending on your viewpoint. None of that matters much; only the consequences of their choice matters.
"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
Our kids, and all C & E’s, need to hear God’s truth. The Holy Spirit can rekindle their faith in the Triune God. Like the bleeding woman whose faith led her to touch the fringe of Jesus’ garment, we trust that hearing the Gospel at Christmas has incomprehensible power.
Isaiah 55:10-11 tells us:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
"First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time."
Now retired, she has an AA in education from CUAA and a BA in Family Life Education from Spring Arbor University. Her interests include writing articles and fiction, and creating house and pet portraits in watercolor and colored pencil. Becky and her husband are members of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Spring Lake, MI.
Oct 30, 2020
Not Normal, But Good
“consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments. Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deed? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done any harm?” (Luther, Luther’s Small Catechism, “Confession.”)
I fear the answer for many of us must be no. It was not all good. And while what we are living through right now is also not very good, our old normal is not something we ought to desire. Much of our life was lived to self alone, and not in love and service to our neighbor. We created a pattern for our lives that left us exhausted and frustrated with the family members God had given us, and while we bemoaned the craziness of our schedules, we saw no way to fix the problems our desire to do and achieve had created.
Our rush and hurry to give our children every opportunity our money could afford often robbed them of the attention they needed from us, their parents. Our inability to communicate with our spouses left us seeking understanding in relationships outside the home, or in the hazy blue-light of our screens. Our obsession with self-fulfillment left us little time to care for those in need in our church or neighborhood. We blamed our kids, our spouses, and our finances for the physical and emotional mess we were in.
Yes, consider your place in life. Was your normal good?
But also, consider this new normal. Are parts of your new normal good?
Certainly there are real, exhausting, hair-pulling frustrations with our current situation. There are serious health and financial concerns. We are still yelling and crying and blaming and whining.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28; ESV)
In the midst of all the upheaval and confusion, see God at work in your lives. Your spouse, your children, your parents, and your neighbors are gifts from God, and you are being called to serve them in new ways. As you are learning to care for them, look for the ways God is working for good. Perhaps you find you enjoy knowing what your children are taught daily. Perhaps you realize working from home, while challenging, gives you a chance to complete a few extra chores. Perhaps your free time allows for you to write, call, or pray for your friends and family. And perhaps, as those silly napkins of ours are getting a workout like never before, we find that sitting down to a home-cooked meal is something our families have needed, and truly is a good gift from God.
Leah Sherman is a pastor's wife and homeschooling mother. She and her husband have struggled with secondary infertility, but are constantly reminded of God's great blessings through their son. She lives in Gordon, Nebraska, and enjoys reading, gardening, and sewing.
Sep 23, 2020
A Backwards Way to Pray (and Why It's Often Better)
by Heather Smith
From my quasi-Baptist upbringing I absorbed many assumptions about prayer. Some of them were admirable, and some questionable. I was indoctrinated that God cares about all aspects of our life (He does) and we should therefore submit all our worries to Him in prayer (we should). Various devotional programs emphasized setting aside daily time for prayer (a wise discipline that was unfortunately doled out as Law rather than Gospel). But perhaps more than anything else, I was taught that prayer must come from the heart. A spontaneous flow of ineloquent ramblings was the sure sign of sincerity, and I was actually cautioned against written prayers since these ostensibly could not reflect the genuine desires of the speaker’s heart.
However, the more years I am steeped in Lutheran liturgy and practice, the more I come to appreciate written prayers, particularly the collects of the Church. Far from leading me into a cold, rote faith, I find they direct my heart to Scriptural truths that I would otherwise overlook. Whereas the type of prayer I was taught as a child identifies my worries, my needs, my desires and asks God to fix these problems, the ancient prayers of the Church work backwards. They ask God to give us what we pray for—by fixing how we pray.
This struck me powerfully in the historic collect for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity:
“Let Your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of Your humble servants; and that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please You . . .”
What a radical prayer! My heartfelt spontaneous prayers would certainly never stumble upon the idea of setting aside the requests I have in mind and instead petitioning God to make me ask for better things.
However, once I recognized this through-the-looking-glass view in one collect, I began to see it week after week:
“Almighty and everlasting God, always more ready to hear than we to pray and to give more than we either desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of Your mercy, forgiving those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those good things that we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Christ our Lord . . .” (Eleventh Sunday after Trinity)
“Almighty and everlasting God, give us an increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain what You have promised, make us love what You have commanded . . .” (Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity)
“O God because without You we are not able to please You, mercifully grant that Your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts . . .” (Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity)
Give us the things we are not wise enough to request. Grant us true good by making us love Your commandments. Change us so that we may love You rightly. Week after week in the historic liturgy of the Church we pray for God’s merciful correction of our truly backwards hearts.
Moreover, it is not simply the ancient Church who believes this is the right way to pray. It is our Lord Himself. As Luther explains so simply in the Small Catechism, more than half the Lord’s Prayer asks for things that God would give us anyway: God’s name is certainly holy in itself. The kingdom of God comes by itself without our prayer. The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer. God certainly gives daily bread to everyone, even to all evil people, without our prayer.
Why, then, does our Lord urge us to pray for these things? It is so that we might learn to recognize the wondrous works He does among us. Far more wondrous than healing from disease or averting financial ruin or blessing with a job is the primary work of the Triune God. Namely, to strengthen and keep us firm in His Word and faith until we die.
Left to its own devices, my heart wants to brush aside this miracle. “Yes, yes, I know Jesus died to save me from sin, and that is the most important thing but, God, what I really need right now is . . .” And so our Facebook feeds fill with urgent prayer requests for ourselves and those we know, sick acquaintances or bereaved friends, and it is so easy to offer a glib response of “praying!” or an emoji of folded hands.
Certainly, Scripture commends prayer for those who are ill or troubled (James 5:13-15), but what should be the content of the prayer we offer? If we simply ask God to provide physical healing, do we not sell short His magnificent mercy and power? In prayer we are speaking to the very God who became incarnate, suffered unimaginable tortures, conquered the power of sin, and freely shares His victory over death with us. Of course He can provide bodily health, but the life He most desires for us is far greater than an extension of our sin-ridden earthly years.
So He teaches us to pray “Thy will be done.” Those four humble words are our passport through the looking glass into the realm of right prayer. Let us live or die. Grant us health or illness. Give us what we ask or withhold it. But this one thing we must have, dear Lord: We must have You. You, Lord Jesus, are our true life and salvation, “Our health while we are living, / Our life when we shall die” (“Christ Is the World’s Redeemer, LSB 539, st. 1). Whether we pray for ourselves or for others, whether spontaneously or from a written prayer book or simply in the words our Lord Himself taught us, let us ever be praying for true faith to cling to Christ our Savior.
Yet if our selfish hearts betray us and we in frustration insist upon our own will above God’s, we have great comfort. He gives what we neglect to ask and withholds what we foolishly demand. He is gracious to us, and He turns our backwards hearts around so they may know and adore Him aright.
Apr 22, 2020
"Faithful Neighbors, and the Like."
Give us this day our daily bread. What is meant by daily bread? Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

Image source.
Apr 14, 2020
Memorization for Moms (and Other Busy Ladies)
Heather is a pastor's wife in rural Illinois, prior to which she was a teacher in a classical Lutheran school in Wyoming and spent time in the Washington, D.C. area working on a master's degree in English. She has an abiding love for reading, baking, deep intellectual conversations, and persistent Lutheran matchmakers.
Post image is in the public domain.
Apr 6, 2020
Paintings for Holy Week: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus in Art
By Anna Mussmann
I’ve made a Google Slides presentation with art and Scripture. You can access it here. Because my children are young and their attention spans are limited, I’ve chosen only one painting to illustrate each event. Older kids might benefit from thinking about the differences in the way various painters have chosen to portray the same stories (for additional paintings see below).