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Dana Rongione 20/05/2026 Dana Rongione 20/05/2026

When Cover-Ups Crack

In 1173, construction began on what was supposed to be a magnificent bell tower in Pisa, Italy. Nobody planned on building a landmark. But about five years in, the foundation, a mere three meters deep, set in soft, unstable soil, began to shift. The tower started to lean, and the builders panicked.

Here's the part that really gets me: instead of stopping, tearing it down, and starting over with a proper foundation, they kept building. As they added more floors, engineers in later stages constructed one side of each story shorter than the other, trying to compensate for the lean and make everything look right from a distance. The problem was that this "fix" only made things worse. The added weight increased the lean. The tower ended up not just tilting but curving until it was bent like a banana, leaning and warped. Over the following centuries, engineers tried everything to correct the disaster, including counterweights, steel cables, soil extraction, drainage wells, and concrete foundation pillars. The final stabilization project alone cost over thirty million euros and took ten years to complete.

All because nobody was willing to stop and fix the real problem at the beginning.

Sound familiar?

Dana Rongione 18/05/2026 Dana Rongione 18/05/2026

Is the News Stealing Your Peace?

I have a confession to make. I've never been one to watch the news or read the newspaper.

There was simply too much doom and gloom, and I figured anything important would be discussed elsewhere in my circle of friends and family. Even today, you won't find a newspaper, online news thread, or news channel in our home.

Here's the thing about the news: it isn't designed to bring you peace. The media operates on fear.

If it bleeds, it leads.

If it panics, it pays.

And so every broadcast, every headline, every breaking alert is engineered to make you feel like the sky is about to fall because scared people keep watching, and watching people keep the revenue rolling in. The twenty-four-hour news cycle doesn't care about your blood pressure. It doesn't care about your faith. And it certainly doesn't care that you're a child of the Most High God.

But God does.

Dana Rongione 11/05/2026 Dana Rongione 11/05/2026

You Can’t Charm a Viper

I have a confession to make. I used to think I was pretty good at managing certain little... tendencies. You know the kind. That low-grade resentment I kept on a shelf. The habit I knew wasn't exactly glorifying God but wasn't that bad. The thought pattern I let simmer because, hey, at least I wasn't acting on it. I had it under control.

Or so I thought.

The Bible has a word for it: cockatrice.

Now, before you look at me like I've lost my mind, stay with me. The King James Bible uses this creature to paint one of the most chilling and personally convicting pictures of sin I have ever encountered.

Isaiah 59:5 says, "They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper."

Dana Rongione 24/04/2026 Dana Rongione 24/04/2026

God Uses Shabby Rabbits and Mute Swans

This morning, my mind wandered, which honestly isn't unusual. But this time, it wandered somewhere worth following.

I was thinking about three stories I've loved since childhood: The Ugly Duckling, The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Trumpet of the Swan. Here are three characters who had absolutely no business being the hero of anyone's story, or so the world around them thought. A gangly gray bird that didn't look like anyone else. A scruffy stuffed rabbit who was losing his button eyes and had the stuffing loved right out of him. A trumpeter swan named Louis, who couldn't make a sound and was silent in a world that communicated entirely through song.

It didn't take long to notice the thread running through all three stories. Each one of these characters was, by all outward appearances, broken. Unfit. The square peg in the round hole.

Dana Rongione 08/04/2026 Dana Rongione 08/04/2026

You Don’t Need Their Apology To Be Free

One of the hardest conversations I've had recently was with a woman who had been deeply hurt by someone she loved. The betrayal was real. The pain was justified. And when I gently suggested that forgiveness might be part of her healing journey, she looked at me with exhaustion and said, "But they've never apologized. They've never acknowledged what they did. How can I forgive someone who doesn't even think they've done anything wrong?"

That question haunts me because it's so honest. It reveals the confusion we've created around forgiveness. The idea that forgiveness requires reconciliation. That it demands the other person's participation. That it can't happen unless we're both willing to work toward restoration.

But that's not what biblical forgiveness actually is.

We've tangled two separate things together: forgiveness and reconciliation. They sound similar. They're often discussed in the same breath. But they're not the same thing at all, and understanding the difference might be the key that unlocks our freedom.