Tales of Grace / Leigh Ann Northcutt

Leigh Ann Northcutt

As the heavens are higher than the earth

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My brother Tommy is two years younger than me. He was born a large tub of baby pudge and grew into a six foot, four inch, mountain of a man. As a boy, nothing gave him more pleasure than dancing all over my last nerve. When mine had been pummeled into a cottage cheese consistency, he moved on to annoy […]

The simple wisdom of Father Tim Kavanaugh

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“Boldly! That was the great and powerful key. Preach boldly! Love boldly! Jog boldly! And most crucial of all, do not approach God whining or begging, but boldly – as a child of the King.” Father Tim Kavanagh spoke that thought to the people of Mitford, North Carolina, and when this particular Episcopalian rector speaks, it is wise to pay […]

Embarrassed by controversy among Christians

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On Super Bowl Sunday, I saw the “He Gets Us” commercial during the game. I had several thoughts about it. None of them were that a 60 second advertisement would cause such controversy among Christians. The commercial, which was titled “Foot Washing,” consisted of a series of photographs of people from diverse backgrounds washing another person’s feet. Among others, there […]

Confused by the Samaritan and the prodigal

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Those of my generation who attended church as children, remember the parable stories we were told there. Most of us sat to hear them in those little plastic chairs that stacked nicely but never sat completely flat on the floor. There were no smart TVs, CD players or VHS tapes. It was back when the Jesus that church kids knew […]

Following children into the kingdom of God

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I have a four-year-old granddaughter who is a pretender. This child is not an ordinary pretender. She is a master at the skill. She inherited the imagination gene directly from her father, my second son. They recently sent me a video of the two of them playing chess. My son set up the chess board with the taller king, queen, […]

God’s comfort comes in death and mourning

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I have a friend whose father passed away last week. Her loss brought memories back to me. I was 29 years old when my dad died. He was 56. He was a pharmacist and owned a small-town drugstore. He knew everyone in town and most of them ran a tab at his store, charging their medication until their farms produced […]

Getting to know Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

For many years, Christmas was the only time I paid much attention to the content of the Bible’s four gospel books. Like most church kids, I spent my share of the season in a nativity costume. (I hate to toot my own horn, but I could recite my lines from our Christmas program, cue the kid beside me when it […]

When there are too many people in the Kingdom

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I grew up in central Kentucky in a town with a population of about 1200 people in the 1960s and ‘70s. For those of us who were children, that meant most of the town knew us, knew our parents, knew our business and reported it to our parents. We had one stoplight, two drug stores, three churches and four blocks […]

Unseen and unimportant are not the same thing

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About this time every year, as I am taking down my Christmas decorations, I tell myself I should get rid of the pieces that are worn out and need to be replaced. The mismatched stockings. The elves with no hands or feet. The woven potholders that have been puckered and skewed since my daughter pulled them from a plastic loom […]

We welcome the new year with confidence

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Charles Spurgeon is arguably the greatest preacher in church history. His sermons were both powerful and thoughtful. Speaking from the pulpit with drama and humor, his oratory skills held his listeners spellbound. By the time he was 22, he was among the most famous speakers in the world. When Spurgeon died, he had preached nearly 3600 sermons, most of which […]


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