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Dana Rongione 09/10/2026 Dana Rongione 09/10/2026

Jacob’s Rock-Bottom Dream

If I were Jacob, I'd be grumpy. His brother wants him dead (not that he didn't bring that on himself). He's left home with little more than a walking stick, and the sun has gone down in the middle of nowhere. There's no inn and no pillow. So he does what any desperate traveler would do and grabs a rock. Comfy, huh? Genesis 28:11 says he put the stones "for his pillows." Plural. Rocks everywhere, and not a memory-foam mattress in sight.

Then comes the dream. A ladder stands on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. Angels go up and down like rush hour at a holy train station. At the top stands the LORD Himself, who makes Jacob a promise:

"And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest... for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." (Genesis 28:15)

Dana Rongione 07/10/2026 Dana Rongione 07/10/2026

Is the Christian Life Supposed To Be This Hard?

I'll admit something. For years, I pictured the Christian race as a Sunday-afternoon jog. I saw myself in cute sneakers with a gentle breeze in my hair, waving at the neighbors and admiring the scenery. "It's a marathon, not a sprint," I'd say, as if a marathon were just a sprint with better snacks.

Then I looked up the Greek word for "race" in Hebrews 12:1, and my smoothie hit the pavement.

The word is agōn, and yes, it's where we get "agony." It was the word for the contests held in the great stadiums, where athletes strained, gasped, and gave everything they had. The word carries the idea of struggle and conflict. Nobody in that arena was admiring the scenery.

We love the race verse. We put it on mugs and bookmarks. But we rarely talk about what it's like to run it on mile nineteen, with a blister, a headache, and a to-do list that's grown legs.

Dana Rongione 18/09/2026 Dana Rongione 18/09/2026

What To Do With Your 2 a.m. Worries

For the most part, I’m a morning person. I don’t enjoy getting up super early these days, especially as the dark night seems to stretch on until well after 8:00. But overall, I function better in the mornings. My body aches less. My brain feels more alert. My motivation and discipline seem to be higher. Yes, give me the mornings, and I can get things accomplished.

That being said, by about 2:00 in the afternoon, I’m crashing, and by 6:00, I’m of no use to anyone! Yes, by 6:00, I have to walk away from the desk, the housework, and any other demands on my mind and body, and start winding down for the night.

So, my real struggle isn't the mornings or even the afternoons. It's the nights.

You know the kind of nights I mean. The house finally goes quiet. Everyone else is asleep.

Dana Rongione 09/09/2026 Dana Rongione 09/09/2026

Discerning God’s Will in a World Full of Noise

I have never been in the military, but I am convinced that church business meetings are the civilian equivalent of trench warfare. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a "the Lord laid this on my heart." And somehow, all those burdens contradict each other.

I remember one particular meeting years ago where we were trying to decide something that, in hindsight, was not nearly as important as we made it out to be at the time. One dear soul stood up and said the Lord had told her one thing. Another dear soul spoke up two minutes later and said the Lord had told him the exact opposite. I sat there thinking, "Well, Lord, You're going to have to pick a lane, because right now You appear to be talking out of both sides of Your mouth." (I know full well He wasn't. But it sure felt that way from where I was sitting.)

That's when I stumbled onto a verse I'd read a hundred times before but never really heard until that moment. Paul, writing to the Corinthian church about spiritual gifts and orderly worship, drops this little nugget in the middle of his argument: "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Corinthians 14:8).

Dana Rongione 12/08/2026 Dana Rongione 12/08/2026

There's No Such Thing As a Stupid Question (When You're Asking God)

I can quote James 1:5 in my sleep: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God..." I've said it over prayer requests, tucked it into cards, and repeated it so many times I could probably say it backward. But for years, I stopped right there. I let the verse trail off into that little ellipsis before it ever got to the best part.

It turns out that "ask of God" is only half the sentence.

James 1:5 actually reads, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

Those two phrases, "liberally" and "upbraideth not," are so powerful, yet I had skipped right past both of them like a kid skipping vegetables to get straight to dessert.

Little did I realize they were the dessert!