Sterling Griggs

The other weekend my wife and I enjoyed some much needed beach time with our toes in the sand watching the waves crash onto the shore. As we lazily sat in our chairs soaking up the sun and breathing in the salty air, we noticed a girl approaching that we recognized, which is not all that uncommon since we do live beside the beach. She stopped to say hello and we casually asked her how things were going with her. To our surprise, she told us. Everything. I mean, she let us know where she had been so far this summer, who she hung out with, how her parents were doing, etc. She didn't give the typical answers, " Things are good...I'm fine...been busy... " No, she actually answered the question that we asked her. Which was surprising, because normally when we ask people how they are doing we don't really find out how they are doing because they typically don't tell us how they are doing, because that's not really what we want to hear, right? Instead, we exp...

God, first let me thank you for this new day You have given to me. From where I sit, I can see blue sky and the sun shining. What a gift! A new day to live and move and breathe. I couldn't ask for much more. Thank You! I'm also incredibly grateful for forgiveness. Without Your forgiveness, God, I would have no idea how to forgive others. Oh, and I'm really thankful for grace. Without Your grace, I would be a big mess. God, Your grace is amazing! You know God, there is a lot of junk going on in our world, stuff that weighs heavy on my heart. It seems like different groups of people just keep on hating each other and there seems to be no room for dialogue or resolution. Father God, forgive me for getting caught up in hate during my life, for viewing other people through the lens of fear and mistrust instead of seeing them as in desperate need of Your love and grace. I know that I can't change people, but You can. You give Your love and grace freely to me; how can I w...

This weekend was a community — a real, true community — coming together in celebration of life. In celebration of music, of friendship, of happiness, of dance — of spirit, peace, and love. With a deep respect for all that came before, a profound acceptance for what’s happening now, and a shared optimism that everything will be okay. When you read that above paragraph, did you think you were perhaps reading about a weekend worship retreat or an incredible youth camp experience from a spiritually moved teenager? If you did, then you are wrong. Dead wrong. That paragraph is actually an excerpt of a blog post written by a Grateful Dead fan and it captures her experience at the Dead's farewell concert series in Chicago July 3-6. Let me go ahead and say that while I appreciate the Grateful Dead's music, I would hardly consider myself much of a fan, let alone a celebrated Deadhead. But reading the entire post by this fan got me thinking: How come Christians aren't this e...

Back in the early 1980's a movie came out by the name of If You Could See What I Hear . I remember watching it as a teenager on cable (yes, we had cable in the 1980's) and, although it wasn't all that great of a movie (my apologies to Marc Singer, the lead actor, who went on to achieve cinema greatness in the movies Beastmaster and Beastmaster II ), there was a certain scene from the movie that has stuck with me these many years later. If You Could See What I Hear recounts the story of a blind musician by the name of Tom Sullivan who does everything in his power to live a normal life in spite of his handicap. Active in the dating scene, Sullivan meets and falls in love with a woman with whom he is obviously smitten. During one scene in the movie, while he is being playful with her, she blurts out a fairly blunt question for him: Tom, how did you know that I was black? Stunned by her question, Tom, who is white, delivers a perfect response to her: I guess I...

" I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it / I'm about to lose control and I think I like it. " That song by The Pointer Sisters was popular back in my day. Maybe you heard Jessie Spano desperately singing it on Saved by the Bell , or you heard it played ad infinitum on the radio station in your car. Truthfully, I can't stand that song, but it's one of those that gets stuck in your heard and won't seem to leave. Now you're gonna be singing it to yourself the rest of the day. Sorry about that. Even though that song was not my favorite, it resonates somewhat with my soul (I know, the song is about losing control in a relationship which is whole other ball of wax, but bear with me). Think back to your last day of school or what it felt like to finish that final exam before summer break. I used to literally scream with joy at the top of my lungs when I was done. School had a controlling issue on my life - it owned me for the better part of the y...

As I child of the 1970's and an teenager in the 1980's, the fads that were so popular then seem so cheesy when viewed from the lens of 2015. I can vividly remember a time when my brothers and I were convinced that our lives would be woefully incomplete if we didn't have a strobe light that our neighbor had put up for sale. Yes, a strobe light. Think disco skating at the roller rink. We devised a plan to make seashell jewelry and sell it in the neighborhood until we had raised enough money to buy this most coveted possession. Our entrepreneurial plan worked to perfection and it wasn't long until we joyfully presented a jar full of change to our neighbor in exchange for the amazing strobe light that would send all of our neighborhood pals into fits of jealous. Excitedly, my brothers set the strobe light up in our garage and we took turns roller skating around on the concrete floor as the intermittent light flashed all around us. What a life-changing experience this w...

The other night I took my son to watch my alma mater, Wake Forest University, take on a local college team in an exhibition fundraiser soccer game. If you know anything about me at all, then you know that can be pretty passionate about Wake Forest sports, no matter what sport it is or how good or bad of a season they may be having. And yes, I even celebrate when the field hockey team gets a big win. As I got settled in to watch the game with a few friends of mine, my son and his buddies went off to kick the soccer ball around with a whole bunch of other kids whose parents dragged them along to watch a game they could care less to see. Us "big kids" were discussing all sorts of issues, including the cost of tuition at Wake Forest University. I asked one of my friends who graduated a few years after I did how much tuition was now and, before he could answer, the two ladies sitting on the bleachers a few rows in front of us turned around and, in unison exclaimed, "Too mu...