Home & Blog | Lynne Baab

Stories I ponder: We are necessary and superfluous

Lynne Baab • Thursday September 28 2017

More than 30 years ago, my husband and I lived in Israel for 18 months, experienced the Sabbath day, loved it, and adopted a Sabbath pattern when we returned to the US. We did this entirely on our own. In the early and mid 1980s we didn’t know of any other Christians who were interested in the Sabbath except as a quirk of Jewish culture.

In the late 1980s and then into the 1990s, Christians began writing about the Sabbath. Both Marva Dawn and Eugene Peterson were influential. After our years of observing a Sabbath with no support from others, Dave and...

Read full article »

Stories I ponder: My mother and her sister

Lynne Baab • Friday September 22 2017

My mother had three brothers, and throughout her childhood she longed and prayed for a sister. The miracle happened when Mom was 11.

The year was 1935, and Missouri was still gripped with the effects of the Depression. Mom lived on a farm, and her parents worked very hard and still struggled financially. My grandmother was extremely busy with cooking, sewing, growing vegetables, canning, and raising chickens. Mom did a lot of the daily care of her beloved baby sister, Marianne.

When Marianne was 16 months old, she got sick with a fever. She began to have seizures and suddenly died.

In the first...

Read full article »

Stories I ponder: My father-in-law and money

Lynne Baab • Friday September 15 2017

My husband Dave has vivid memories of his parents’ arguments about money. Dave would lie awake in his bed hearing the arguments, wondering if his parents would split up and he would end up at the orphanage down the street.

Dave’s dad, Hubert, was born in 1913 and had some rough years. Soon after the depression started, his mother died, and his father fell into alcoholism and stopped providing for Hubert and his brother. The two teenagers left their home in Ohio, rode the rails to Iowa, and found work on a farm. Later they returned to Ohio and found jobs at...

Read full article »

Stories I ponder: A tale of two grandmothers

Lynne Baab • Friday September 8 2017

Just over thirty years ago, when I was a part time seminary student and stay-at-home mom of a baby and a toddler, the editor of our church newsletter asked me to write an article about grace and truth in the Christian life. I wrote an article about my two grandmothers, and I called it “A Tale of Two Grandmothers.” The editor didn’t seem very pleased with it, but she printed it. I think she was looking for something theological rather than anecdotal.

I don’t have that article anymore, but I remember the gist of it. As I think about it now, I’m...

Read full article »

<< Newer | Older >>