“What next?” I don’t often start my mornings with such questions on my mind. I often am startled awake before dawn and make a beeline for a programmed coffee pot stirring my senses with steaming hot goodness. My day starts with coffee and prayer. I have a typical spot to settle as I seek the…
Stopping to consider the lessons I’ve learned from my opportunities to travel, my perspective on being an American has changed. I came to realize that I thought was gratitude, was actually a form of pride. Gratitude or pride? I don’t think it was intentional, and at best it was subtle, but this sense of pride…
No matter how dark the night, despite what the future may hold, the voice that I hear whispers a tune.. right into my soul. The music is all around us. Can you hear it? In the quiet I am surrounded by the sweet sound of birds outside my window. Oblivious to the human condition these…
A dying art, the handwritten letter is slowly but surely being replaced by emails and texts. I confess, I just am as guilty of letting this age-old practice diminish in my own life; and yet, reading Paul’s letter to his young charge Timothy in my Bible, I am inspired to write a few of my…
I am the thorn in His crown. The splinter in His thumb. That tag that is constantly rubbing, and the child that seems to always be whining. And He loves me anyway. I was talking to a young woman recently who had been processing the gospel message: We have all sinned against a Holy God.…
What if I let go? Of my pride. Of my sin. Of my selfishness. “How happy is the one whose transgression is forgiven.” What if I let go? Of fear, of failure, of the future. “You are my hiding place, You protect me from trouble. You surround me with joyful shouts of deliverance.”
Young girls carefully slip the perfectly white gloves onto their little hands, working to fit each finger inside the correct hole. Almost instantly, it seems, they are whisked away to a land of make-believe. Transported to another time and place, they begin to speak in a polite accent, go through the motions of being “proper”,…
I woke up to a new reality. A sobering thought. A haunting question: What if? What if the passion I have is misguided? What if my thoughts–my desires are not from Him? Does this passion that I have honor the One I have declared to be my Lord? The One True God. The Maker of…
I long to be the one who makes you smile. From deep within me is a person who wants to be that somebody who makes every person feel like a somebody. I really do want to be an encourager, but far too often I leave a conversation thinking about what I wish I had said. …
I love to read. When I open the cover of a new book, I am filled with a sense of awe–like I am setting out on a new adventure. Turning the page of a book is like opening the door to something yet undiscovered. And then life happens. At some point you have stop, put…
We all have them. Those little things that drive us crazy. They flip our switch and spark a fire. The question is, if we want a happy marriage, how do we respond to those little idiosyncrasies that get under our skin? “If you let them, idiosyncrasies can take the joy out of marriage. Those peculiarities…
When I was young I hated peas. You can ask my Mom and she will tell you that she still remembers me shuffling peas around my plate for what seemed like an hour, trying to make it look like I had actually eaten some of the green balls of goo. While it never bothered me if…
It’s not complicated, really. These three things that seem to have so little in common bring back a flood of memories. Memories can take us back to places we sometimes need to revisit. Maybe it was a time that you learned a lesson the hard way, or maybe it was just an epiphany moment that…
It’s not that I don’t love a beautiful table. I do. Really I do. I have white dishes just so I can create a table setting for any season just by adding colorful napkins and a centerpiece. (I’m practical that way.) It is a joy for me to put together the pieces, adding a touch…
