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Dana Rongione 15/06/2026 Dana Rongione 15/06/2026

Putting on the Armor When You’re Tired

Last week, Jason and I finally did it. We hauled out the old, falling-apart dressers and replaced them with a shiny new (well, new to us) three-door wardrobe. Jason built in some shelves, I found the perfect baskets, and over the course of a few days, we went through every piece of clothing we had stuffed in those poor drawers.

Some things were easy to let go of: old, worn-out pieces that had lived a good life. Others I just never reached for anymore. But I'll be honest, there were more items than I'd like to admit that simply didn't fit anymore. I wish I could say that some had gotten too big, but sadly, that was NOT the case. Either way, they weren't doing me any good.

As I stood there, holding up yet another item that no longer fit and muttering something unladylike under my breath, a thought hit me: Sometimes the armor of God feels exactly like this.

Dana Rongione 10/06/2026 Dana Rongione 10/06/2026

Is Your World Flying Upside Down?

I learned something recently in my Animals of the Bible study that completely rearranged my brain.

It turns out, moths aren't actually attracted to light at all. I know. I know! Everything we thought we knew about moths is a lie. Well, not a lie exactly, but definitely not the whole story.

Here's what's really going on. Because moths fly in complete darkness, they face a very real problem: how do you know which way is up when you can't see anything? God, being the brilliant Designer He is, solved this problem by giving moths a built-in reflex to always keep their backs toward the brightest light. For thousands of years, that worked perfectly. The sky, lit by the sun or the moon, was always the brightest thing around. Back to the sky, fly straight. Simple. Elegant. Genius.

Then we humans had to invent electricity and artificial light.

Dana Rongione 27/05/2026 Dana Rongione 27/05/2026

Do I Really Need To Do My Part?

When you hear the word "construction crew," what do you picture? Big burly builders in hard hats? Perhaps a guy with a clipboard who seems to know what he's doing, and everyone else just getting in the way?

That's not what we see in Nehemiah. When the rebuilding of Jerusalem's wall began, the "crew" was... everyone. Goldsmiths. Perfume makers. Priests. Merchants. Dads. Daughters. People probably more familiar with frying pans than hammers. Chapter 3 reads like a holy roll call of ordinary folks doing an extraordinary thing: obeying God and working side by side.

And right in the middle of all that enthusiasm, we bump into one sad little line:

"And next unto them the Tekoites repaired; but their nobles put not their necks to the work of their Lord." - Nehemiah 3:5

Everyone else is shoulder-to-shoulder, sweating in the sun, stacking stones for the glory of God. But the nobles of Tekoa are standing off to the side.

Dana Rongione 22/05/2026 Dana Rongione 22/05/2026

Choosing the Swine Over the Savior?

In Mark chapter five, we find one of the most dramatic scenes in all of Scripture. Jesus and His disciples have just stepped off a boat onto the shore of the Gadarenes, and before the disciples can even shake the sea spray off their sandals, a wild man comes screaming out of the tombs. We're talking wild! No clothes. No chains strong enough to hold him. Living among the dead, and cutting himself day and night. The people of the region had given up on this man. He was a lost cause. A hopeless case. But Jesus? Jesus didn't even flinch.

In the blink of an eye, the Lord cast out a legion of demons. The man who had terrorized the countryside was suddenly sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. It was the miracle of the ages. The townspeople should have been throwing a party!

But here's where the story gets strange...well, stranger.

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?