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Secrets are a two sided coin. They can be delightful. They can be malignant. But, every person has them, the good and the bad, tucked away somewhere inside. Today’s post peeks into Jesus’ teaching regarding the hidden things of the heart.
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Our physical bodies thrive on proper nourishment. Our spiritual lives grow with consistent and studied layering of God’s Word.
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Oh how bent out of shape we beings are about the subject of justice, a subject on which nearly everyone thinks themselves an expert. Why is that?
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Paul said, “do not be anxious.” But standing next to a hospital bed, peace felt unattainable. What I found in Philippians 4 amazed me.
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My dad was pretty wise in saying that the way we think really is who we are
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My grandson Luca stared at me in one of his disconcertingly studied ways. He tilted his face one way and then another. I wondered what he was thinking. I felt pretty sure he would let me...
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So…when’s the last time you wrote a letter? You know the pen on paper kind with real words formed into whole sentences? This morning I walked the short distance to our mailbox, and placed...
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“Was it Ross?” “No that’s not right,” he shook his head. “Richard?” “Maybe we ought to take some of that stuff they advertise on T.V.,” my husband mused when both of us together couldn’t...
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Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m in an ocean of things to worry about, they come at me in waves of “what if’s,” “maybe’s,” and real losses. I seem to be semi-afloat but I feel like I’m t...
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“It’s a little too high,” I say to my husband. I’m on a small kitchen step ladder. My arm stretches as high and deep as I’m able. “Here,” he answers. “Let me get that for you.” He’s been...
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There are several ways to say “good-bye” in Italian. If you meet on the street and the setting is informal, “ciao” serves as friendly “Hi,” and “Bye.” “A presto,” tossed at someone means,...
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“I know how to, but I can’t do it,” my grandson said. I pondered the words, because I knew exactly that kind of frustration. In fact, it is so much a part of the Christian life, isn’t it?...
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Sometimes I wring my hands in worry. I fret. I boil in anger and let emotions drive me. I’m not sure how you react when bad things happen in the world, when events occur that seem unjust...
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“Brothers!” my youngest grandson shouts. “Hey, Brothers.” And my heart melts just a little. His two older brothers wrestle with each other at the round kitchen table. Laughing, shoving, a...
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I remember the cool feel of the wooden pew in the church of my childhood, that little hop I needed to get my seat onto it, the shimmied push to the back until finally ruffles surrounded m...
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My husband and I hurried through the airport , to make our connection while dodging and squeezing between other fliers and their bags. It was the last leg of our flight back home and we m...
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We’ve sailed past Father’s Day on our calendars. Some, like me, remembered fondly those blood lines that brought physical life. Others tried to forget, and still others celebrated men tha...
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“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it,...
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By the time I post this, our big family-grandson-wedding-get-together should be a thing of the past. Hopefully it will be laced with precious memories. At this stage with kids, grandkids,...
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“You are over the speed limit,” the friendly but slightly mechanical voice says. I smile. She’s my friend, a companion who takes care of a little piece of driving worry. And, I like that...
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When many were saying, “Next thing you know, they’ll be listening to us in our houses,” my dad was carefully picking up the receiver on our wall party line to listen to our neighbors. Eve...
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“I love you, Grandpa and Grandma,” my twenty-year-old grandson said before he ended our phone conversation. He is about to turn the ripe old age of twenty-one and will be married in less...
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It might have been at our little town’s parade, or maybe at the State fair, but I have a faded memory from childhood of a cart with balloons floating above it. They were bunched together...
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I’m a mom. I know the tug of the umbilical cord from birth until giving each baby away to love and cherish another. I’m a grandma, and I recognize the family units that must even take pre...
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You’ve worked hard, poured yourself into the project, sacrificed and finally it’s done. And it turned out good. No, even better than expected. In fact, you feel down right euphoric about...
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I hold one end of the measuring tape while my husband walks backward. The metal unwinds until he reaches the spot he wants marked. His thumb stops at the line and he bends the tape toward...
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“Owwwwwch!” I moaned to no one but anyone who might be so inclined as to listen. Making the bed has its risks. Working from left to right I consistently stub my toes on the hard edge of t...
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I stretch my arm in waking fogginess. My fingers begin a walking search for my glasses. I am not a morning person. “Not” in an extreme sense. I get up at neither an insanely early hour no...
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Slowly the crowd came to its feet. Some laboriously used the row ahead for leverage. Over the attendees, silver glinted, like imperfect halos, caught by the lighting above. Although the g...
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A notice comes on my phone. A picture of my great-grandson pops up. I open the app and find a video of his mommy talking to him, leaning over his little tummy and digging her head into hi...
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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, it turns out that its value may be much less. Fake photos on social media showed captured U.S. Soldiers and Tel Aviv in shambles. They...
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When my daughters were teenagers growing up in Italy, a group of American high schoolers asked them for Italian swear words they could use. My bilingual daughters, were unfortunately accu...
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Our grandson drops his arms and ducks his chin. His despair comes from missing a soccer goal, a basketball shot gone wrong, or a race not won. His feet drag. He is disheartened. Unfortuna...
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I had a little unintended smackdown. Probably well deserved, but still…it kinda stung. And the entire time, I chided myself on one thing. I knew perfectly well that it shouldn’t have both...
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“Ain’t no man that good,” I quipped. Everyone feels lonely at times. Truly good friends are rare and precious. I have book friends. Gym friends. Writing friends. Bible study friends. Hobb...
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The ring’s been on my finger over 50 years. When he gave it to me, I was afraid it would slide off and I’d lose it because my finger was so slim, so small. It’s kind of grown onto me now....
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A steaming cup of coffee warmed my hands. My husband lifted his tiny Italian espresso cup in salute. Outside the patio doors, cement like layers of snow-ice, shone so bright, we squinted...
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Whiter than snow, Lord, whiter than snow. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Wherever you live in the USA, you’ve been aware of the great snow storm. You have likely been part of pr...
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“He hit me first,” little arms cross in defiance, and little legs plant firmly. No retreat without a struggle. These are days grown ups brawl and pick sides, while firmly clinging to thei...
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A white board hangs on one of the walls of our basement. On it scribblings mark the agenda of the day, that is, those perceived as most important through the eyes of the last grandchild t...
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When we lived in Italy, going to the American Embassy was always kind of a big deal. We needed to have papers and identification in order. We prepared. Despite our home country’s flag and...
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“Just do what’s right today,” my husband’s voice said into my ear. The cell phone pressed hard against me, as if the very pressure could somehow put his words into my being. But doing rig...
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Growing up we called it the “Mennonite game.” Within a short span of meeting someone new, we somehow managed to find a connecting relative within a massive tangle of roots. When one of ou...
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An angel appeared. A virgin conceived. Thousands of miles away a ruler declared a census. Like a drum roll of Sovereign timing and unstoppable happenings, the wheels of prophecy turned. W...
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Every year for the last five years my three youngest grandchildren have come to our house in December for Starry Night. The idea birthed in 2020 when the “Christmas Star” appeared. It was...
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Long before America created an overflowing and beautifully sophisticated Thanksgiving table, thanksgiving was a thing. Before pilgrims gathered around a rough wood hewn table, or a sweet...
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In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV) Last weekend I picked up my grandson’s big fat backpack to throw over my should...
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“Thank you for the sghetti,” the little voice said. My daughter’s hands, folded in prayer sat against the edge of the kitchen table. Those first prayers were so pure and yet so very contr...
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When we moved into a tiny Italian village, we gained immediate notoriety as, The American Family. In fact, we were the only Americans in the area. We were an anomaly. I could feel the ten...
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What is it about autumn that calls all gnats into my kitchen like the plagues of Egypt? And woe to the one who leaves out the banana peelings. Jesus’ message in Matthew, chapter 23, seem...
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It’s been a long yawn to full Autumn in Virginia. Trees have hesitated to blush but few have succumbed to their eventual fiery reds and yellows. This season seems hesitant to drop its lea...
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My dad, talented in all things musical, had a sharp ear and perfect pitch. “Should have been a B-flat not a B-natural.” He could be working the back forty, but when I struck a wrong note...
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My friend looked in his rearview mirror and saw the sign to a church, which propelled him to whip his car into an unplanned detour. His life’s trajectory changed that Sunday by his decisi...
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One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four… The smell started as a vague drift of unpleasantness. But as I cleaned off the counter, a sniff of something not quite right remained. Afte...
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“The temperature will be 94 degrees Fahrenheit, but it will feel like 104,” says the weather man. And I smile. That is my world. He is describing me. It’s kind of a faulty default. My act...
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“Did God save us to let us starve?” I may not have said it quite like the complaining Old Testament Israelites are recorded after their exodus from Egypt, but I may have had that very sam...
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“I don’t know where we’re at,” Phil’s dad used to say from the front seat of his handicapped van. In his later days my father-in-law, sweet and intelligent seemed to live in an anxious st...
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It had been an overlap day, when one commitment led to another with hardly a breath in between. Three grandsons sped through their home kitchen where I tried to do some cleaning up after...
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There is a whole lot of unseen upkeep in life. Changing sheets, mowing lawn, washing laundry, servicing the car, making meals, planning groceries, unplugging drains, buying supplies, fixi...
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A friend recently phoned me and began our conversation with, “Are you bored now that you are retired?” My four children are in various throes of raising our grandchildren. I watch them an...
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You know the type, right? The one who must correct every statement another makes. Someone who can wax eloquent on just about everything, and does. That person. The one who knows it all. T...
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Sunshine bright with glory bathed our tiny backyard. Blue sky beckoned. Winter months had been long for our four-year-old son, and he was ready for play. “If you need me, I’ll call you,”...
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I’m not good with directions. I never could find where we were on that big paper Rand McNally map, so when the first GPS came out, I considered it to be a marriage saver. Until I realized...
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She sat in front of me, a crumpled mess. Words halted and poured again like the start and go of a sputtering fountain. Lines furrowed her forehead. They drew the portrait of a weary soul....
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I’m so excited to share with you something from my daughter Charity. As a result of a mass on her brain stem when she was twenty-six, Charity lives with incomplete-quadriplegia. She wrote...
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I checked again to make sure the blue passport lay in my palm. Lines of weary travelers stretched long behind and in front of us. In tightly clasped fists, passports of green, maroon, and...
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I found the crayon-drawn picture lying on a chair, during my hurry-and-pick-up-the-house-cleaning. Time tightened before guests arrived, and the house reflected the chaos of muddy shoes a...
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A message on my phone encouraged me to contact a certain Margaret. It seems she wants to recruit me for a job. I have great potential to earn an amazing amount of money. In fact, my name...
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I tilted my head a bit to look for myself in his stick figure drawing. I wondered is this truly how he saw me? “Is that me?” I asked. He nodded. He held a felt tip marker in a small hand...
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She toddles toward me, hands outstretched. My eyes are wide, excited and inviting, “Come on,” I urge with a half whisper. A foot lifts, and then another. A wobbly sort of drunken-sailor-t...
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“If Jesus wanted to,” my little seven-year-old fellow classmate declared, “He could flatten my thumb and make it big enough to go around the whole world.” He held his thumb inches from my...
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Pacing from streetlight to streetlight, with my phone pressed hard against my ear, I wore a circled path on the asphalt. My head down, my feet entered the illumined cone shaped area on th...
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“What’s God been teaching you through His Word?” I ask as we settle in, past the mundane of life. We’ve left behind kids, jobs, routines, and the cycle of activities that spin our lives....
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“Hey Sis,” she said to get my attention in the store. She was more than double my age with white hair. She looked like my grandma. “Mom,” I hissed, “don’t call me Sis,” I always wanted a...
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I’m not sure how old they were, but to me the title “ancient” applied. My parents, had an entire cabinet of dietary supplements. Every morning they’d pull them out and a ritual began. The...
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In the budding of a greening spring, bringing life and color to these naked woods, a lot of decay happens. We counted five dead deer on the way to church. Vultures are having a feast. Sur...
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Have you, like me, noticed how very popular the emblem of the cross is in jewelry and clothing? Both men and women wear crosses around their necks, fingers, waists, and wrists. Crosses ad...
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“There is certainly a lot of uncertainty,” the television news commentator reported. Well…that pretty much sums up life, doesn’t it? The reporter went on to elaborate on his statement, al...
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We started married life in an upstairs apartment of a small house in a small town. Below us lived our landlady and her son. I always heard her puttering about in the kitchen. She puttered...
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There were days, dark and bare. Black and silent. And though those days are mostly past, sometimes even today, when I least expect it, the veil, which holds suffering inside, seems to eva...
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“Eat your peas and carrots,” turned out to be a big order for one of our daughters. Solid food, that big step of introducing all manner of foreign texture and flavor into a baby’s mouth w...
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I am sitting in a waiting room again. Waiting…’cause, that’s what people do in a waiting room. Wondering…which goes with the territory. Worried…it’s part of the package too. It will be a...
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His eyes lighted when he saw me walking toward him in the crowd. My grandson headed straight toward me with a smile, and sidled up against my side. He stretched his arms around me and squ...
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I’m sitting inside and watching the perfect snowfall out our Virginia window. It came at a most inappropriate time, when our plans had to cancel, and schedules had to be re-scheduled. But...
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My British friend with her lovely accent once said to me, “Americans have been putting tea into the water since the Boston Tea party, and from then on they’ve kept right on doing it the w...
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“Are you being married?" our then four-year-old grandson asked. His whole body shoved forward to fit into a space in-between my husband and myself’s quick hug in the chaos of a kitchen sw...
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It’s a snowball of sorts. Little things turn into bigger things, the list of to-do’s explode until there is simply no way to accomplish all of it, and a minor set back becomes a nearly im...
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We sat in the old farmhouse dining room, around the table where my mom had hosted generations of family. And we divvied up the old pictures, bits and pieces of written history, and trinke...
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Somewhere in the middle of dodge ball tag and baking cookies with three grandsons, my youngest grandson cocked his head to the side and asked, “So Grandma, what do you two do here all day...
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When my daughter woke up on the day which changed all of our lives, it started pretty much like every other day. She felt a bit dizzy. She checked her temperature, but she didn’t have a f...
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We make promises. We plan, envision, re-calibrate, and define goals. We look ahead and behind. We hope, determine, and anticipate. We look forward to a white page, a whole year ahead, wit...
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The slammed door echoed into the hallway and shocked the kitchen. Probably every teenager has managed a few. Ours did. And, although door slams were outlawed, the ugly secret was that I w...
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How many times have you said, “there’s just no end to this?” Paperwork, bills, middle of the night feedings, late at night work shifts, or maybe it’s simply the dirty pile of dishes in th...
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Mornings have always been a process for me, like pulling me out of a deep well where my feet are sucked by muddy weights of dreams. Greeting each new day takes time and a dose of courage...
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“Oh Mom. God would be good if there was cancer,” she replied, sitting against the metal slatted headboard of the hospital bed. Her voice held that daughter to mother tone of reproof, and...
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I love the Holidays. Always have. Hopefully always will. Yet, as seasons pass, new challenges arise and I find at times a sense of melancholy seeps into this time of year. I recognize how...
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It’s a crisp November day outside. Up until now the warmth of late summer has hung its hat on Virginia’s autumn. But, fall chill descended last night and the breezy gusts feel polar in co...
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It’s Wednesday morning. I am writing this blog five days before November 5. Election Day, 2024. Likely, a winner will have been decided when it pops up in your email or feed. Your world w...
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It’s autumn. I’ve gotta admit that I am not a fan of fall. I see the beauty in the Virginia reds, yellows, and oranges. I love the floating leaves in the air. I like the sound of their cr...
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Does it seem at times like the whole world is a powder keg about to blow everything to bits and pieces? Yet, it’s the personal kind of powder kegs, when life feels out of control, that sh...
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I remember the clingers. I can feel those little arms that hugged tight around my neck and the legs circling my body. I remember the process, of disentangling a hand, then a leg, then the...
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Three of my grandsons love baseball. And that is an understatement. Growing up they lived it. They chewed wads of gum, memorized plays, and spit. Yes, those little guys could spit with th...
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I heard the door open and my husband’s heavy footsteps slowly ascend the steps. “Hi Honey,” I greeted at the top. “How’d it go?” We were young with a newborn in a new city, new apartment,...
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It was back in the day of big over the lap Rand McNally Maps. One lay across my legs while I sat shotgun on the front bench seat of our 1966 Chevy Impala. Across the two big pages, lines...
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If you were to walk the streets of Bologna, Italy during a spattering of months out of the year, you might see a confusing sight. Now and again whether in a crowd or walking alone, amid A...
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My dad used to have some succinct sayings to get his points across, as in, “ain’t got the brains God gave a goose.” This pronouncement, often hurled at politicians, portrayed a questionab...
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I have some dear friends, whom I love very much even though they run. I mean really run. On purpose. Because they like it. They have a few years up on me, yet they are forever completing...
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The words stop me when I come across them, … “the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people…” They make me pause and close my eyes...
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His big round eyes followed me. His little face filled with confusion, fear, and betrayal. I read his silent plea as if the words had been spoken, “Don’t leave me.” As I turned from the c...
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Oh tomato plant that towers many feet above my head. Where is your fruit? I grew up on a farm in Kansas, and at the risk of embarrassing all my Kansas friends and relatives who put into c...
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My eyes had been glued for a while to the little boy in the row ahead of me. He must have been about a year old. Fussy on his mother’s lap, I could see the parental exchange. “Should I ta...
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“Gotta be thick-skinned to survive ministry,” advised a pastor to my young husband. “I’d never have continued if I’d let every criticism get under my skin.” As a pastor’s wife and mother,...
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Our church has started a meet and greet time during the service as many churches do. It is one of those things which make introverts run for the bathroom. Although it is a good practice f...
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The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:1 ESV...
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My husband is a fan of split screens and simulcasts. The more the merrier. One corner of the TV can play a football game, while the opposite corner shows something completely different. T...
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“Put me in jail, put me in jail,” our six year-old grandson shouted. “Put me in jail, Gramma,” The boy’s scooters whizzed by, daring me to move out of the way, challenging me to capture l...
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So, my husband moved the big trash container outside, you know the move-once-a-week hunker on wheels? It’s a job he accomplishes without thinking much about what might or could happen. We...
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“He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” (1 Thessalonians 5:24 NKJV) 50. The Big 5-0. 5 Decades. A Half Century. As a bride, I had no idea. I thought people who had been marri...
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I was my big brothers’ TV remote. I can still hear their call. Through the bleaching heat waves of Kansas, over the baked and cracked ground, their summons reached me. Underfoot brown far...
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“Just hang on,” he told me. I was at the wrong end of a washing machine stuck cattywampus in the stairwell half-way down to the basement. The heavy metal box towered above as I tried to h...
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A shadow, long and wide, interrupted the sunshine for just a moment and then glided over the bright green foliage. My grandson and I squinted into the blue above us. We saw the outstretch...
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You were at boarding school and we were six hours from you in our ministry. Our first and oldest to fly from home, you seemed far too young, and we felt so unready. But, the label “Missio...
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If you are a fan of home improvement networks like I am, you are well acquainted with the satisfaction some people get from Demolition Day. It’s like party time. However, although I enjoy...
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We all have them, markers of good and bad in our lives. April marks our spot. It’s another anniversary of when life altered through our daughter’s illness. I often wish I could box up our...
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Our last few weeks have been ones of weeping with those who weep as we’ve watched dear friends mourn the loss of a beloved son. Yet, they have also been days of seeing glimpses of pure gl...
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“Is that your son?” I asked pointing to the little guy who had just scored on my grandson’s soccer team. Strangers to one another, we’d been standing side by side echoing with the same gr...
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In August of 2017 an eclipse marked our path in Kansas City, Missouri, where we lived. I wrote about it on a blog then. Today, we live in Virginia, not smack in the center, but still near...
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We call them “thorny situations.” They describe something we’d usually rather avoid. Because thorns hurt. Because a situation wrought with barbs and little wiggle room is bound to bring p...
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“It’s too heavy,” he whined. His little hands strained to lift a fat rough log. He wanted to imitate his grandpa who seemed to hoist them like twigs into a wheelbarrow. The red cheeks of...
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“It needs an update,” my husband says. He wasn’t talking about me, which is a good thing. For us both. Phones, computers, thermostats, security systems, clocks, TV's, GPS systems. I mean...
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“Eat the green beans first,” I told my homeschooled grandson. He grinned. He understood immediately what I meant. It really had nothing to do with vegetables, but everything to do with th...
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His little fingers dripped with orange greasy pizza oil and stuck together with chocolate fudge-vanilla. I checked his face and found it wreathed with those same streaks of orange and bla...
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It broke my heart and stole my resolve. As a writer, rejects come. It’s kind of part of the whole deal, it happens and though difficult, it usually helps me grow. But this email rejection...
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One of our teenaged granddaughters spent a few days with us recently. She came loaded with gift cards she’d received from Christmas. We spent a day shopping and she had a day of bliss. Bu...
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Balance. It’s a thing. She toddles toward me, hands outstretched. My eyes are wide, excited and inviting, “Come on,” I urge with a half whisper. A foot lifts, and then another. A wobbly s...
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“Who do you want to be when you grow up?” I used to ask our kids. I liked to hear all the ideas. Their aspirations swung wildly. Everything had its season, from astronaut on Mars, to arch...
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How is it that a man who hates shopping finds some unexplainable driving challenge in riffling through one bottomless brown bin after another? I watch the man I thought I knew so well, be...
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“That was so satisfying,” my grandson said. Surprised, I wondered, “Where did that came from?” He had just fished out a slippery shard of thin ice from a puddle. It lay shattered like gla...
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A much younger me studied the face that stared back from the mirror. Outside of the bathroom, where I’d taken refuge, a squalling hurricane had erupted. My toddler daughter banged her fis...
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“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Princ...
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“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Princ...
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“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Princ...
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“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Princ...
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Long before America created an overflowing and beautifully sophisticated Thanksgiving table, thanksgiving was a thing. Before pilgrims gathered around a rough wood hewn table, or a sweet...
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I tilt my head a bit to look for myself in his stick figure drawing. I wonder is this truly how he sees me? He waits. “Is that me?” I ask. Pen in hand, like Picasso, he nods. Proudly. Ser...
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“I don’t have time” is one of those ridiculous things we say pretty much all the time. As if time can be owned. As if we could take charge of it, I mean really, “who’s got the time?” Righ...
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How dark it must seem to walk in the thick dust of bombed buildings and destroyed lives. How thick would be the despair of cruelty, death and loss. And how desolate feels a future built f...
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My grandsons are going through the picky eating stage. I’ve watched all fourteen grandchildren hit it along the way, and it never fails to bring back memories of my own children’s fussy e...
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I heard the bang of a metal door next to me before I leaned down for that “underneath” the gas-station-bathroom-stall search. In my bent over rectangular view, two thick-soled black shoes...
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“If Jesus wanted to,” my little seven-year-old fellow classmate declared, “He could flatten my thumb and make it big enough to go around the whole world.” He held his thumb inches from my...
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Have you ever hit a fork in life when you have asked, “Now what?” You might be thinking of the last time you put together a 1,2,3 step project out of the box. Only it didn’t turn out so s...
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When one of our daughters was in second grade, her school teacher mentioned an issue that she’d observed. Our daughter had begun to limp. She complained about her leg hurting, especially...
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One of my missionary colleagues gave me an illustration of life in the jungle. It held a punch that I hope I never forget. South American roads at times are little more than frequently tr...
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On the farm, after dark meant black. The only light, other than the stars, shone from a tall pole smack in the middle of the yard. I ran from the gray shed to the house like lightening, s...
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“How old are you?” my grandson asks again. It’s a regular question which I try to regularly dodge. “How old do you think I am?” I ask back. His little forehead wrinkles as his eyebrows dr...
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Our refrigerator died. Second fridge demise in six months. The next week my computer met its maker. It went like an apple with a bite out of it. Sometimes life is like that. “Grandma,” my...
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Calling all wise guys. Only what if they aren’t? Remember that old advertisement, “let your fingers do the walking?” It promoted a thing once upon a time called the yellow pages, which wa...
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In the shadows of the farmhouse where I grew up, monsters dwelt. They hid in the barn after dark, in the upstairs midnight hallways, and most certainly underneath my bed. Big, hairy, but...
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I don’t often sit around begrudging my past. Shoot, it’s difficult to remember what happened yesterday, but I admit, there are some offenses that are more difficult to forget than others....
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When the sun streams into my kitchen window, it cheers my soul. Everything literally seems brighter. Its brilliance however, illuminates more than just the room. Particles of dust flicker...
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“…for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” Hebrews 13:5 ESV Recently I was asked how I feel now about God’s response to our daughter’s illness in the past. We prayed fo...
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So, my grandson who is four years old beat me at a game of memory. There are a lot of reasons this happened. The cards, for example had some sort of out of this world superpower heroes. I...
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If I say, “Micaiah,” what comes to your mind? Nothing you say? Well good. But, I hope you never say that again after you read this post. Let’s just start with: Incredible Bravery. Immovab...
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“Ahh! Salaam and good evening to you, worthy friend. Please, please, come closer,” our tween-aged daughter motioned with her hand. From the movie Aladdin, she knew every word, every gestu...
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Welcome to this guest post from my husband Philip Schroeder. One of the transformers serving the office building where I worked blew. There was no power in most of the building, including...
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What is a “new creation?” Am I one? Are you? “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV). Who Gets What? B...
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This morning I chanced to look out my bedroom window. Water splashed up from the little “pond” in our back yard, as if a fish slapped its surface. A water feature which worked once upon a...
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Tiny baby puffs of air caress my cheek. Her dark hair, fuzzy and soft, tickles against my neck. What can be sweeter than those barely heard snores and the soft breathing of an infant warm...
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“See that Momma?” a little voice by my side questioned. His face tilted up toward the sky. His eyes squinted against the brightness. I followed the line from where his finger pointed to s...
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I wish my kids had known her better, the woman I called Mom. I would like to have them remember how her hands flew over the piano keys, and see the line of piano students that came to the...
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I confess to cheating. I eat a few stolen calories I don’t add to my count. I spend money on an outfit and hope it goes unnoticed. Oh and another really bad one…I cut my walk by skimping...
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Two favorite features on my nose are little grooves that criss cross the surface. They are barely distinguishable, but I’m proud of them. Both remind me of people I love. One reminds me o...
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Today my best friend is writing a guest post. He’s been around since high school, and I’m honored to have been married to him for almost 49 years. You may not realize how much Phil alread...
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Thor belongs to four of my grandchildren. He is a Vizsla with a beautiful brown coat and liquid brown eyes which clearly speak dog-beg. He knows exactly how to sit at your feet and patien...
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“Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabb...
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Life holds a succession of pivotal moments. They distinguish themselves with phrases like, “from now on,” “if I had it to do all over again, “never again,” or “I’ve made my decision.” But...
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Things were bad, dire in fact. A line which separated life and death grew so slender at times I thought she was already gone. My forehead found a resting spot on my daughter’s still one,...
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“Don’t step on the lava!” It’s a chorus of young and old watching little bare feet hop, skip, and jump from pillow to pillow, over and under chairs. My youngest grandson just turned four....
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It is often the incomprehensible pieces about God and His Word that bring us back to the rudiments of our faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things no...
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Mud, thick red goop clumped his little shoes like melted cheese oozing out of a sandwich. Hunks of it fell in globs I tried to avoid as I scooped him up. Briefly his legs swung from side...
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This morning I woke up feeling like it was time to go to bed, like every year of my life creaked and groaned somewhere or someplace in my connections. Purpose felt dried and brittle. Piec...
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Oh my goodness, how I loved my three older brothers. With a number of years between us, I looked up to them like heroes, as if the sun rose and set in their background. And in spite of be...
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Growing up my bedroom faced a dirt road. A small gravel circular drive half-mooned just feet in front of my window. I watched the mail man drive up in a cloud of dust. He was as punctual...
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“I am so ready for an angel to come,” Phil said that morning. I’d been thinking the same. I got up from my cot next to our daughter’s bed and joined my husband where he stood at her side....
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There is a lovely little addition behind our house so covered in Virginia woods I didn’t even know it existed until the leaves dropped. The first autumn we lived here, I saw a light from...
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My blender is revving up with its loud whir when the door bangs open and my grandson runs in from outdoors. He puts on the brakes barely past the threshold, stops, and covers his ears. I...
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“The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.” Psalm 37: 23-24 ESV One tiny h...
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This past Christmas might have confirmed what we knew all along. Many of the things we want most don’t come wrapped in beautiful packages. While holidays wind down and stores fill with re...
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“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:7 KJV May your Christmas b...
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I grew up with a silver aluminum tree. There will be those who respond to that fact with pity. There will be others for whom an indescribable nostalgia sweeps through from head to toe. Ou...
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Four different Biblical characters in the Christmas Story point to answers which might change the way you see Christmas. 1. “How can I be sure of this?” (Luke 1:18 ESV) Zechariah the prie...
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Black Friday, get-all-you-can-day, comes directly after be-Thankful-for-what-you-have-Day. Ironically paradoxical isn’t it? After feeding on bounty and gratefulness we rise from our fatte...
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My kids used to say I should write a how-to-hide-the-turkey-recipe book. We ate a lot of turkey when we lived in Italy. Affordable and easily available, I disguised wings, thighs and brea...
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“We will be measuring your daughter for a wheel chair at 3:00 this afternoon,” the nurse told me with a cheerful smile on her face. Befuddled images traced vellum pages on my mind. A brid...
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Whatever State You are In Today “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.” Philippians 4:11 NKJV So what state did you wake up in? Red...
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As a kid in grade school I often heard a debate about whether the world was getting better or not. “Better,” my teachers said. “Better,” my T.V. screen told me. “Worse,” my parents said....
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“How do you feel?” My husband’s voice asked through the anesthesia. My hand moved heavily to the spot where a baby had grown. “Empty,” I whispered. He scooped my tear before it hit the pi...
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It wasn’t unusual to hear our house creak, but the distinct soft footsteps on the staircase made my scalp tingle. I stood quietly inside my bedroom on the second floor, then creeped to th...
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My husband wakes up every morning and makes a decision. “What class clothing is this day?” What he does during the day determines what he wears. When he used to go into an office, the dec...
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“Are we there yet?” little voices once asked from the back seat. Years slipped by, like miles passing underneath. Complaints changed, the questions grew more sophisticated, and the voices...
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Lined up side by side, ready to take off, my grandson’s restraining arm shoots out across his little brother’s stomach. “Go!” Big brother shouts. They take off across our grass. It’s a du...
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If Humpty Dumpty and I sat down for a heart to heart, I think we’d find we have a lot in common. The first and most obvious is the state of our brokenness. The thing about the king’s hors...
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“You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” (Psalm 89:9, ESV) There are storms and then there are STORMS. The amount of inner turbulence bothered me over such a...
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It’s a routine day at Grandpa and Grandma’s. A brightly colored skyscraper of towering Duplo blocks decorates the middle of the living room. Grandpa has taken time off from his Foot-a-eat...
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A bit of a ruckus in Aisle Four grabs my attention. Stacks of bright notebooks and bins of colored pens separate me from a young father trying desperately to check off the teacher’s list...
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“Call me Mara,” Naomi said. Tragedy chiseled her face and spilled from her lips. Pleasant, the meaning of her name no longer fit. Mara suited her, for it meant “bitter.” “I went out full...
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The first August I lived in Italy, I had no idea what had hit the entire country. Still anemic in language and culture, I didn’t know what to make of the silent streets of Florence, usual...
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“You only live once,” she quipped. Laughter followed that flippant remark. I turned away from the screen. I’ve used those same words to justify indulgences from purchases, to a risk, and...
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Today I’m delighted to introduce you to Jeannie Waters. Besides being an accomplished writer, she is always ready to help and encourage me in my own writing journey. Jeannie is an award-w...
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“Would you rather be a bullfrog?” I ask my grandsons. My finger dramatically lands on the big green bullfrog leaping across the left side of the page. The book with the same title, by The...
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The blue-overall-clad farmer plucked a bearded head from its white stalk. His form blotted a black silhouette against the bright sky. I squinted in the sunshine. A shadow lay across me, i...
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Do you go on vacation with more than just what’s in your suitcase? This week you’ll find me at https://www.jeanniewaters.com/blog/. Today it’s my privilege to be Jeannie’s guest blogger....
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My father-in-law used to shake his head and say with a bemused look on his face, “Who knew that someday…,” then he’d finish the sentence with something particular from that season of life...
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This year as Father’s Day approaches I am so aware of the attack on the family, on the role of Fathers, and disengagement and disrespect placed on family in society. It’s complicated by p...
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When my husband and I travelled to visit-and hopefully encourage-global workers around the world, I confess, some countries got more prayer than others. The prayers usually had to do more...
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If you have been disturbed by current events, you aren’t alone. We’ve had weeks of images difficult to forget. Wouldn’t it be so nice to turn on the TV and find the world at peace, evil c...
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Have you ever wondered what to share, how to share or even if you should share something? I have. We see this paradox in Asaph. He authored Psalm 73 with a conflicted heart. He admits to...
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Ah, Spring. You’ve been a long time coming. The day was perfect as I walked the neighborhood. The depth of the sky’s blue called me. Azaleas bloomed in vibrant bush bouquets. Every bird’s...
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Between believers, a high-five of “God is good,” covers a lot of ground. It is inspired by a happy outcome, good grade at school or maybe a really good deal on a new pair of shoes. How co...
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Little hands on mighty hips, my seven-year-old face-offed with her teacher. The innocent question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” torched the classroom. It seems out of the en...
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There is a rock outside the church we attend. It’s a huge sort of how-in-the-world did that-big-thing-get-there boulder. It shoots out of the ground with no apparent means or logic. Wheth...
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Holidays come down with a splat for me once they are over. If I’d schedule a pity-party that is precisely when it would be. It’s symptomatic of intense preparation coupled with a lack of...
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A big plastic red cup sits on the edge of the tub where he bathes. It keeps company with a yellow ducky, Noah’s ark, and a flapping tailed fish. The cup, once used for drinking water, now...
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“…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne o...
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“It has no taste,” I told my husband last summer, disappointed the meat on my plate was not cooked right. But once the words came out, I recognized them as significant. My sense of taste...
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As a child I loved working with dot to dot pictures. I pondered them before I put pencil to paper, trying to form in my mind the whole picture, wanting to unravel the yet unknown. With a...
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“I no see it,” he says. His little spying eyes are squinted almost shut, focused on finding the far away airplane I point towards in the blue sky. “There,” I say to my three-year-old gran...
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The talk was fierce. Fear rampant. He had orchestrated one murder, and was bent on more. Mobs and riots cheered the violence he inspired. It was unthinkable someone like that could ever c...
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“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” -C.S. Lewis, The Lion,...
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“Thar’ she blows,” a friend quipped of his late wife. A sweet soul and my dear friend, she apparently hid a temper under her skin, not easily aroused but impressive to its recipients. He...
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Asaph, King David’s talented musician had issues. He agonized over life’s inequality and unfairness and fell prey to a common problem. “For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the p...
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“Is there wildlife?” she asked over the phone. After moving from the midwest where deer and antelope play and seldom is heard a discouraging word, I paused just a moment to consider. Well...
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“TANSTAAFL,” the text read. That crazy duck quack my husband has on his phone announcing incoming texts sometimes drives me crazy. At almost 1:00 a.m., it’s enough for a heart attack. “Wh...
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“What?” he asks. Only it’s not so much a question as a two-year-old’s bold reaction to just about everything. His forehead draws together, his questioning mouth opens and his head jerks a...
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“We are ill prepared for living here,” I told my husband on the third day of a power outage. He’d been shoveling the driveway, bringing wood into the fireplace and fire burning stove, and...
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“And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place.”...
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The last week of December always feels a little like an in-between to me. It’s between holidays, months and years. Akin to adolescent years, somewhere between child and teenager, life has...
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In the sweat and grime of one contraction bursting upon another, I concentrated on a child yet unknown, but one already knit with my own heart. Birth in that moment was all about bringing...
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I’ve had Christmases without snow, gifts scarce, and family missing, but I’ve never had one without Handel’s Messiah filling my airwaves. When I think of Christmas glory, it is always wit...
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My son’s eyes sparkled like sun kissed waters when he pulled a bright red package from under the tree. His little hands reverently held the wrapped box, its smashed bow wobbled, as if rea...
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“And it came to pass in those days” Luke 2:1, “that there went out a decree from Caesar Augstus that all the world should be taxed.” (KJV) What were “those days?” If your feet walked the...
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I learned to really appreciate this American tradition in a place where it was not celebrated. Our first years we felt alone without family. We joined with fellow North Americans, friends...
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As we enter the season of thanksgiving, I love the emphasis on remembering, being aware of the little things, the falling leaves, slivers of sunshine and raindrops of life. We talk of the...
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We went to Italy back in our young days knowing my husband might have an advantage in language and culture. He grew up as a missionary kid in Ecuador. I grew up a farmer’s kid in Kansas....
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Almost three years had passed, since our daughter’s illness, but the pain hadn’t lifted. It wrapped around me like a lead blanket. Peter, Jesus’ disciple and I were buds. “While walking b...
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One of our grandson’s started first grade this year. He is the first of our son and daughter-in-law’s children to begin first grade. It is a shell shocking experience for all parents. And...
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My husband chiseled out what he calls a prayer stump from the trunk of a fallen tree. Its back behind our house where he is hidden from human eyes. It’s an uncomfortable seat, an earthly...
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“Do you like me?” the elder three-year-old asked his little brother. He rolled onto his side and hugged the little body of his two-year-old brother lying beside him. In a world of Faceboo...
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I yanked and pulled until the weed snapped, its root still intact like a vein under the skin of the earth. I’m not a great gardener. I might even be a lousy gardener. Roots like those, wi...
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The scenery changes outside my window. From tree covered mountains to patchwork plains. I’m going home, although I’m not even sure where that is anymore. I’ve called so many places home....
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"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" I’ve not lived a long time in Virginia, but in the time I have, I’ve seen a lot of trees. Coming from...
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From the back of the car, three kids sang with megaphone voices. “Do everything without complaining, do everything without arguing, so that you will become blameless and pure, children of...
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“Gamma!” my little grandson shouts. He begins his own personal happy dance with one chubby knee up first, then a big hop on one leg and a galloping pivot that nearly knocks him flat. Thos...
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My youngest grandchild has begun to climb out of his crib with his mattress as low as possible while wearing his sleep sack. It’s a feat. The security camera recording shows his formidabl...
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Landing on Italian soil in 1982 The first time I boarded a plane for Italy, I left with one husband, 24 suitcases, a child on each hip, one holding her daddy’s hand and the absolute assur...
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“I don’t know where we’re at,” Phil’s dad used to say from the front seat of his handicapped van. In his later days my father-in-law, sweet and intelligent seemed to live in an anxious st...
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Recently I wrote a requested article on the subject of worry. It caused me no end of worry. Worry is my middle name. I’ve been put to the test in a crazy worrisome situation in the last f...
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I saw them in a lush green park, a family three-some. Sandwiched between mom and dad, a little girl with pudgy legs, light-up shoes and brown pig-tails lifted her legs high. I stopped to...
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“Remember what I told you,” I said to my little girl with golden hair, long and silky. She tilted her chin upward, her blue eyes fringed in black lashes locked into mine, digging deep, sh...
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“He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children,” Ps. 78:5 ESV “Who’s in control here?” I asked the mirror mi...
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“I wanna be full,” my grandson says. Tomato red rims his mouth, like the ring around a bullseye. Sauce lies draped down the front of his green shirt. A whole lotta food didn’t hit the mar...
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I wore mismatched shoes to the Doctor today. It’s taken us a year with the COVID backup and restrictions to establish a base doctor in our new town. I finally had my first visit after mon...
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“The devil is in the details.” I’ve often seen the validity of that phrase in politics. It makes perfect sense when reading the small print at the bottom of a contract, or if one is faced...
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Two heads are better than one the saying goes, but besides the obvious intellectual melding of minds, a much sweeter truth is communicated when two heads come together. A mommy rests her...
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“I didn’t recognize that gray haired man,” my husband and I squinted together at the photo on his camera’s screen. I saw him immediately in the group picture. He wasn’t so ready to claim...
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“Putting ourselves first doesn’t come naturally,” a glossy magazine lay open on my lap. I said aloud to absolutely no one, “Well that’s a bunch of bologna.” The article continued in the s...
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I’m a cloudy kind of person. Something in my soul shuts out the light inside me like clouds that hide the view. But when the shadow passes suddenly it’s as if the glory of the sun explode...
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My mother-in-law, Esther Kangas Schroeder went to be with Jesus last night. Life has a way of spilling one thing onto another, and stuff can end in a big heap. Yes, even for almost-retire...
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Are you looking high enough for connection? You know that wonderful feeling of finding someone with your same interests, passions or thinking? “She gets me,” you say. Or “he knows exactly...
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We have an escape artist in our family. The kind that scales double safety gates across the stairway, the type who climbs out a crib in a sleep sack, through open windows and sneaks out l...
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“Where do you live?” she asked. Wind whipped her white curls into a crown around her head against a blur of golden wheat fields as we sailed along the dirt road. I glanced her way. She sa...
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“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103 ESV When fast food started flipping burgers in Italy, it raised a commotion. Protests and picketers l...
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Our yard is full of psychologically needy birds, and my husband is the reason. For those of you who know this man that God gave me, you must realize he will not grow old like the rest of...
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Hey, not so fast. Although the Easter holiday is past, the resurrection is not. “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He ap...
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Things had begun to get dicey. Fame’s two sided coin’s darker side threatened. Not everyone was a fan of Jesus nor of those who claimed to be His followers. Jesus laid out coming events,...
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It’s the craziest thing when you see someone who looks like someone else from some place else in a place they shouldn’t be found. When we moved to Italy across the ocean, across culture a...
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Do you know where the term “green with envy” stems from? Shakespeare is credited with the English idiom in Othello. Before he came along to make it popular, the Greeks are thought to have...
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When I think of my grandchildren, there is a sweet glow in my mind of happy holding-on-the-lap book reading, coloring pictures together or baking cookies. Quiet blissfulness. Togetherness...
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My six-year-old and three-year-old grandsons have never even seen Star Wars, but the way they go at it, you’d never know. They grunt and shout in victory and defeat. It is a run-for-your-...
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“Do you know Gawd?” Arched back, hands on hips, lips puckered, the question comes from knee high, completely out of the blue. I look down at his upturned face. A light saber pulsates in h...
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“We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” Numbers 13:33 (ESV) It’s impossible to read about the Israelites’ long exodus from Egypt without being convicted of s...
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My acquisition of the Italian language really doesn’t reflect the amazing teacher I had in Florence, Italy, or the excellence of her skills. Like Michaelangelo she chipped away, always co...
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(This post may have a familiar ring to it. You may have read it on the first go around Feb. 14, 2017, but it’s especially appropriate for a revisit before Valentine’s Day sneaks up on you...
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Featured recently at Just18Summers.com "It was a Facetime call. I held it up and saw some of the cutest little faces looking at me. “Grandma!” My five-year-old grandson and his three-year...
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“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” -Bill Clinton. Every time my husband and I round a particular corner, political signs crop into our sight like spring tulips. The law...
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My husband has a carpenter’s chalk line. He rolls it out, squints down its straight line and lifts it slightly between thick fingers, then lets it snap. It leaves a distinct chalk line ma...
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“…my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.” Ps. 73:2 (ESV) I feel like a lot of us are walking into a log across our path, or maybe on quick sand. The Psalmist Asaph writ...
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“Uh, uh, uh,” I hear the warning in three short grunts. I turn quickly to find out what my not-quite-two-year-old grandson is doing. My quickness is due first to fear for his safety and s...
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Another year has passed. No wait a minute, I hear you say, not just any year. 2020 is behind us. But like a nightmare that drags its headache into the day, we feel its shadow as 2021 begi...
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Dad always wanted lots of light for reading in our old farmhouse. There were never enough and they were never bright enough. I remember well his hand, freckled with age spots as he settle...
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It happens every year. It’s like trying to finish off the Christmas cookies, fudge and eggnog so I can start dieting in January. It’s such a burden. But perhaps none quite so marked as th...
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I found it in the bottom of a box marked kitchen in big bold Sharpie script. Moving and packing can throw the best laid organizational plans askew. Not enough space in a box mixes with to...
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“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw hi...
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It was the usual mayhem of opened plastic totes, lids tossed aside and Christmas decor spilling onto the floor. A just decorated tree and mantel already changed the entire look of the roo...
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A year ago, before the shadow of Covid darkened our skies, my daughter wrote a guest post. As we look for the light at the end of the 2020 tunnel, it relates to our lives now even more. T...
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I’ve written before about my hatred for goats, but somehow this year, it seems appropriate to revisit that dislike. No Thank You I hated goats. Dorothy hated being milked. She was an ugly...
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“Why?” my grandson asks. A little hand pats my leg, soft but insistent. Round blue eyes search mine as if the connection somehow might supply what he needs to know. Maybe those annoying r...
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Proclamation 118—Thanksgiving Day, 1864 October 20, 1864 Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November...
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Our first child cried a lot. Understatement. New mom terror of that piercing cry and the absolute certainty it brought reinforced my insecurity. I had no idea what I was doing. In the rar...
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Somewhere between the I-can’t-do-everything-around-here and the it’s-easier-to-do-it-myself syndrome I hear the whisper, “Don’t forget Me.” But the day is full and fragmented. A tiny face...
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“For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Cor. 3:9 (NIV) “A house tells a lot about the person who lived in it,” my husband, the carpenter mumbled....
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“You’re never too old to want your dad to be proud of you,” my husband stated the other night as we both collapsed into bed, tired from a day of hard work. Those poignant words took me im...
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“So,” she asked, “are you beginning to feel settled yet?” How do I answer that, I wonder? Should I mention we haven’t even carried our furniture up from the basement because first we have...
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“Nothing of value has changed,” he said leaning over our daughter. His young face was earnest and sincere. His blue eyes searched to connect with hers, foggy and distant. Day after day an...
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It was a tiny village, not much more than an intersection with a few stores. When we moved into the area, the only American family in Magazzino, Italy, we gained immediate notoriety. I co...
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“What to do when life is miserable,” I suppose there are those of you out there that don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ve never had a miserable day in your life. I will not tell you...
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So, I cut his roast chicken. Into little square edibles. When I looked up, he wore a puzzled expression, a little worried but seriously amused. I drew my eyes back down to where mangled b...
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A finge of black lashes, thick and long shadow his blue eyes. They only partially hide his hurt and uncertainty. They tug at my heart like a messy knotted umbilical cord. “…For the Lord…”...
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Her name was Candy. I couldn’t describe her if I had to. I never knew the color of her hair, the width of her smile or touch of her hand. Because she didn’t exist. Yet, every meal time fo...
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“Pick me up,” my grandson says. He reaches little arms high, and his mommy leans down, puts her hands against his solid tiny body. Her brown hair swings forward and covers the smile I kno...
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Our middle daughter was about the sneakiest two-year-old imaginable. Quiet, sweet and oh so cunning. But the one sneak I never got used to was the tip-toe out of bed escape. Because she d...
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There’s a U-haul behind us. I will be home someday, and when I am, the U-haul’s not coming. We’ve been planning this move for a long time, still I feel like it snuck up on me. The details...
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Sometimes I just want to see to the other side before I get there. I confess to reading the last page of a book to calm my nerves in the middle, or wanting to know the end of a movie befo...
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“Can’t we all just get along?” she asked. Watery pools gathered at the bottom of her eyes ready to splash over, waterfalls of reflected blue. Life as a thirteen-year-old had become invade...
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Like puzzle pieces of an entire, we can only guess what’s behind the mask as we pass in a parking lot, at work, or in a store. But if eyes are indeed the window of the soul, we should be...
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This week when I was out walking, I saw a perfect tree. I paused to look up and appreciate the sway in the wind, its colors moving in and out of sunlight, its form and height. Under its o...
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Every morning I take a walk in the city and pass a spot where I can see a massive field of grain. As I top a hill it’s there. My entire vision fills with gold. Day by day whiter, riper, f...
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She sat on my daughter’s bed, bent forward and fumbling with the gadget on her lap, a thin white line connected it to her ear. Even though I stood across the room, I could hear the music...
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A round robin family letter, the kind meant to keep families connected in normal times when coronavirus has nothing to do with being apart pops up in our inbox several times a year. Cousi...
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“The things I do for my kids,” I thought with a half-eaten Big Mac in one gloved hand and piece of wilted lettuce in the other. “But this tops them all.” I stood on a stool leaning into a...
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I know well my husband’s furrowed brow. I am well acquainted with the set of his jaw and the far away focus of his eyes. His spinning thoughts, the ones that talk louder inside him than s...
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“Oh mom,” my college aged daughter said, and could it be I heard a tiny bit of impatience in her voice? “Half the kids I know in college live in the same town as their parents and they ar...
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“She’s my friend,” my daughter said with a nod. “She doesn’t cheat.” My head shot up. “And some of your friends do?” I asked, thinking at least my six-year-old was on the right side of th...
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Last night I dreamed I was in a crowd of people in a store. We were pressed together in a small space and I knew I was too close. Too near. I woke up wound tight like a mummy and with a h...
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1. What you criticize in others, you likely do yourself. Momma took the lesson a step farther. What you criticize in others you probably are aware of because it’s something you already do...
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“It’s easier to just do it myself,” I mutter. A dishtowel hangs from my hand like a tail swaying against my hip. Chores, those supposedly helpful contributions are about to be my undoing....
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The long marble hallway stretched like a tunnel ahead. I remember the wavy lines narrowed to another corridor where doctors and nurses passed like a hospital thoroughfare of workers inten...
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Maybe now is actually the right time to doubt your faith. How can I say such a thing in the middle of the biggest global crises most of us have experienced? Why would I bring more uncerta...
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It’s an odd time to sell a house. It’s an odd time to move. It’s an odd time. Boxes scatter the floor and emptiness echoes off the walls of the only house we’ve ever owned. Outside a For...
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I don’t know about you, momma, daddy, grandmama, and granddad, but the last few weeks have fogged my brain and tattered my thinking. If today could be superimposed like tracing paper over...
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How is your, “But even if He does not” faith? My husband, Phil, and I have been reading some of those New Testament verses that beg childlike faith. Verses like, “if you ask me anything i...
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My husband and I stayed in a motel in Nashville two nights before a tornado ripped through the area. We watched the destruction on television and wondered at the fact that we were just th...
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What would it have been like to reach a hand to Jesus’ shoulder where he slept and shake him awake? We relate well to the waves of Mark 4 splashing into the boat, the wild winds and terri...
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“No, no, no,” he said. He held his little hand like a stop sign. His voice raised a breathy octave. “Let’s not play it like that, let’s say if you want to move ahead on red, you can.” He...
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Anybody who grew up barefoot on a Kansas farm knows about stickers. A flat lying torture-in-waiting plant with seeds like tiny wooden barbs. They spread viciously, looking for tender skin...
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After a string of long days, it had culminated into the perfect storm. My two-year-old, four-year-old, and seven-year-old each had the issues of a titanic about to sink. All at the same t...
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In the love month, my challenge to you is to read what is called the love chapter in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 13 always convicts me of straying tentacles of my heart strings, and is alway...
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I heard the truck-stop bathroom door squeak open from my perch inside the painted wooden stall. “Oh Momma!” A little voice said full of wonder. “It’s pink.” Pink was an understatement. It...
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The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Proverbs 16:1 (ESV) “Life will never be the same,” I told my friend. “No matter how this turns out, li...
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Here they come again. Younger each year, or maybe I’m just older. They come with their finger on a map and feet pointed forward, eager to go anywhere and do anything for Jesus. Men and wo...
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Sheets of frozen white driven by cutting wind kept my snow-loving son indoors. By late afternoon, the worst moved past. Glittering flecks blew from drift to drift, tiny razor shards of sn...
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In the month of January, when people sit down with year planners and good intentions, I realize, I’m not a great goal setter. I don’t like to see on black and white what I’ve kept locked...
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It’s crazy how much time it takes to make the season perfect. The ratio of hot chocolate and cookies to lights and greenery is only outdone by the numbers on my gift list. What should fil...
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A rubber duck accompanied my walk around the room. I laid it in plain sight on a shelf of the bookcase. Its classic yellow face and orange bill pointed to the door where my daughter would...
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-Guest post by Charity George Too often I wait till I’ve reached the light at the end of the tunnel, to be thankful. “Thank you that those test results turned out good.” “Thank you that t...
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I did it again. I took out my measuring tape and measured. It wasn’t the dainty kind I carry in my purse and embarrass my husband with, or the big black one pocketed in his tool belt hang...
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My dad, talented in all things musical, had a sharp ear and an equally sharp tongue. His pitch was perfect. He judged without apology. “Should have been a B-flat not a B-natural,” he burs...
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It was in a moment when the house was quiet, the girls at school and my husband at work that the little blue sleeper called my name again. The sun’s bright rays bleached my vision and I s...
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“I want to hold you,” he begged at his mommy’s knee, arms upraised toward her, little toes tipped his almost two-year-old body up and down expectantly. “I want to hold you too,” she said....
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Before farms had fashionable “mud rooms,” they existed. “Don’t you come in the front porch,” my mom insisted to my black-dirt-clothed brothers before supper. Because of course on the farm...
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So, I cut his roast chicken. Into little square edibles. When I looked up, he wore a puzzled expression, a little worried but seriously amused. I drew my eyes back down to where mangled b...
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“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV) Typically on the farm, Labor Day meant a day to labor, another of many laboring days...
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They come, a little bewildered, some heralding children yapping at their ankles and running in circles, some almost newlyweds with blank-slate futures while others brave it alone. Obedien...
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My parents weren’t really the “let the consequences teach her” kind of people. They were more the “let’s give her some consequences” types. But since I could always count on what my actio...
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“First,” my husband said listening to my remodeling ideas, “I need to see if it’s a load bearing wall.” My face fell like a house made of cards. In the back of my mind, from the day we pu...
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Recently our family, kids, spouses and grandkids got together at an airbnb for three days of togetherness. It took the form of lots of games, food, and hours of conversation. Kids ran thr...
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I stood before my mini-version. Blonde hair curled at the shoulders, bright blue eyes sparkled, and a pleased smile lighted her face. Behind her on the wall splashed brilliant colors in w...
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Before the carpenter’s sawdust brushed off, before the wood glue dried, before the grout hardened, the guy I married had to learn a new skill, the pregnant husband trade. Married four sho...
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I’m a cloudy kind of person. Sometimes something in my soul shuts out the light and then the cloud passes and suddenly it’s as if the glory of the sun explodes inside of me and everything...
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I tend to separate my life into BC (before Charity's illness) and AD (After the Destruction) of Charity's physical body. Those categories can also stand for Before Children and After Daug...
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Flour frosted the kitchen like snow. A flour bin, a half-empty bottle of vegetable oil, and baking pans fought for territory on my counter. Little fingers thick with dough punched and kne...
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“No rest for the weary,” mom sighed. She bent down to pick up muddy boots and move them off the kitchen floor where they lay on their rubber sides, shells without spirits. She carried the...
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“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied. (Mark 15:2; NIV) Easter mornings looked like new clothes and smelled like ham baking. It culminated with E...
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Okay, so it’s possible I don’t like her child. That friend who’s been a friend for as long as I can remember, the one who dried my tears after break ups and sad movies, the friend who kne...
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Fire darted from blue eyes. “I don’t want to go.” White ruffles flounced around her squirming legs as we clicked the strap into her car seat. She crossed her arms, defiant. A frown like a...
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One of my daughters, might have had the advantage of most lawyers at age two. By the time she turned ten, she could befuddle my brain to the place where not only did I forget the point of...
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“Ain’t got the brains God gave a goose,” Dad muttered, shaking his head. He sat in his chair in front of the big old Zenith. Encased in a piece of furniture that fit the previous TV, the...
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Well, the first lesson should be, never, absolutely never engage in conversation with a serpent. That is where everything started to go downhill. Because where else would Satan strike but...
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“Mamma, where are you?” I hear it in my thoughts like light feather snow around me. It drops into my silence and stirs memory sticky and sweet, of little hands that cup my face and turn m...
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They come, like the Israelites in Joshua 3-4, instructed to stick a foot into the water, and trust God for the next step. Testing, poking and prodding Jesus’ calling on their lives, they...
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The hospital room where my twenty-six-year-old daughter lay against snowy sheets grew quiet as a tomb. Her husband sat next to her. He leaned his back against the wall, holding her hand,...
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New makes me skittish. While everyone else revels in the thought of a blank-slate New Year ahead, I’ve always anticipated a new beginning with a bit of fear and dread. When others see pos...
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Every year, of my childhood, the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, Christmas pageant practice began. The characters were the same every year, the players different... ...In all the sweet...
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When sparkling lights are only beeps and monitors on a hospital screen. When money is lean and gifts few. When a bucket sits next to a miserably fevered child. When uncertainty shrouds ho...
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Rows of little feet too short to reach the floor, swung like swing sets on long wooden pews. Lined up by grades, and bookended by teachers, the oldest sat in the back, the littlest in the...
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“I’ll still be here,” he whispered as he climbed back into bed next to me. The sun still slept outside the dark window. Chill replaced the warmth of good-bye hugs, of little arms around m...
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In the small town where I grew up, “turning out” was a big deal. A person turned out right when they got a steady job, got married, had a family, and stayed in the same church in which th...
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“So far so good,” I text to a friend when asked how my husband is doing after surgery. The crazy thing is he may be doing ok, but, I am so far from so good. It is a terrifying ride for me...
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He sat alone at the table, palms pressed together like hands praying, shoulders hunched, and chin resting on the tips of his fingers. He stared into space a million galaxies away. Togethe...
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Charity bounced into the kitchen. Two braids swung behind her. Her black Italian school uniform covered mismatched pants and shirt. The hidden kaleidoscope of colors was her way of nose-t...
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"Think on these things” Without thinking I click praying hands. My heart goes out to the family’s post. Their picture and plea sit at the top of my feed. It’s been a rough year. I send a...
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Ugg, this time of year I fight a big battle with a tiny creature. What is it about autumn that calls all gnats in the Kansas City area into my kitchen like the plagues of Egypt? Woe to th...
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It was a sincere question, “What are some weaknesses you see in my parenting?” I thought I really wanted to know. My husband and I were both twenty-three with a still-young marriage and a...
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“Mommy?” Charity whispered into the dark still night. “Hold my hand.” I felt the soft skin of her little hand slide smoothly into mine. It fit perfectly, like it was meant to be there. Th...
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You rode the rapids from the protection of my womb into the hands of a stranger. With that final push, our hello began but giving up started. Because each day is an offering. We separated...
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She sat in front of me a crumpled mess. Not a particularly deep conversation quickly turned into infinity pools of tears. Words halted and poured like the start and go of a sputtering fou...
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I have a friend who looked in his rear view mirror and saw the sign to a church, which propelled him to whip his car into into an unplanned detour. It altered his entire life. His traject...
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I am engrossed in soapy dishes at the sink, my back is turned from the rest of the quiet house when I think I hear something, someone talking. Did I leave the TV on upstairs I wonder? I p...
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"She has, you know…issues.” I hate having “issues.” The dreaded connotation underlying the word implies different, problematic, maybe even burdensome. I hate burdensome. Yet the reality i...
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He walked the church aisle past where I sat. A little girl, about two-years-old straddled on his hip, her shoe dangled against his leg. His left arm circled her securely. Another little g...
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“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.” Matthew 15:18 (ESV) When our family moved to Italy and went through the agony of language learning, o...
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The struggle shows in the quiver of a cheek, tremor of lips, and an escaped tear. It comes with a mass of curls shading her face, falling forward with her bowed head. She hides behind its...
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“Call me Mara,” Naomi said. Tragedy chiseled her face and spilled from her lips. Pleasant, the meaning of her name no longer fit. Mara, suited her, for it meant “bitter.” “I went out full...
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The question will come. It did for us as she sat on my lap, her baby-soft hand moved my chin to look at her face. Big blue eyes searched mine, “Mom, how did you know Dad was the one?” The...
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My grandson screeches around the room, his dark blue cape flies like a flag behind him. “Quick,” he says in a flutter of little feet and hands, “on the couch.” Because of course everyone...
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What if Tarzan hadn’t married Jane, the tree swinger? What if Tarzan married Penelope who didn’t share the same desire to swing from a tree? What if she had no idea that people killed spi...
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“I don’t want them to have a mother like me,” my daughter said. I sat in a heap, shoulders bent, my right side propped against the hospital bed. The children were always on her mind when...
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I lay on the couch, one eye open and one shut. An ice cube wrapped inside a damp washcloth balanced on my eyebrow. “I weally sorry, Momma,” he said. His face was level with mine, his eye...
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The door opened with a bang against my front hall. “Mom!” Something was wrong. My heart revved like a racecar. I wiped wet hands against my apron and hurried to meet my daughter, home fro...
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“On Wednesday morning, the first rays of sun were peeking around the clouds,” my daughter Charity wrote. “I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Strange dizziness clouded my mind. I ha...
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“Hey Sis,” she said to get my attention in the store. She was more than double my age with white hair. She looked like my grandma. “Mom,” I hissed, “don’t call me Sis,” I always wanted a...
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“Momma,” he called from the dark bedroom. “Is Jesus here?” “Yes, Justin.” “Ok, don’t worry Mom, we just can’t see Him,” he shouted from his bed. I plopped down on the sofa, letting Justin...
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Sunshine bright with glory bathed our tiny backyard. Blue sky beckoned. Winter months had been long for our four-year-old son, and he was ready for play. “If you need me, I’ll call you,”...
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I was transported. Seriously. When our kids were small we always read a Bible story before they went to sleep. Sometimes we read different books first, but the last story they could alway...
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“Try rebooting,” my husband tells me. It seems rebooting is the castor oil of ailing computers. It always gives me a gut ache, like I may never again see beyond the spinning wheel on my s...
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“…be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” When we lived in Italy I loved the day after Easter because it was also a holiday. While Easter Sunday was chocked full of activity, food an...
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In a backdrop of politics, taxes and kings, the disciples came to Jesus with a question. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? It was the underlying challenge of Satan when he sou...
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“How did you do it?” my daughter asks with an exasperated sigh, the kind that expires like a thin whisper from her soul. She is weary, and the noise level is high. She plops down next to...
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Suddenly prepositions and conjunctions are popping up in my Bible everywhere, because in fact, they are everywhere, joining words and clauses. I’ve overlooked them. What are little insign...
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The sun streams through trees, dappling its light across the deck. Its brightness bathes my upturned face in warmth. I sigh, and the sound is a whisper of praise. It is a perfect moment,...
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“The things I do for my kids,” I thought with a half eaten Big Mac in one gloved hand, and piece of wilted lettuce in the other. “But this tops them all.” I stood on a stool leaning into...
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“The doctor will just take this itty-bitty part,” my finger taps my daughter’s birthmark. I wear an intentional mask of cheerful confidence. “It won’t take long and it will be all over,”...
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“Hi Beautiful,” he says from the doorway of her hospital room. He is slightly out of breath from hurrying, from untangling little arms squeezed around his neck, and giving the baby a bott...
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We were three weeks into a month-long road trip with our three young boys. And although we are no strangers to roadtripping with young children, I was feeling rather tired, overwhelmed, a...
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A fistful of trousers yanks in my grandson’s little hand. “Dadda,” he urges. His little face is upturned. Longing and hope fix his expression. My grandson expects response. After all, thi...
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I’ve never been one to jump with two feet into a new year. I don’t even take giant steps boldly into the future. Let me tip toe into it with baby steps, slightly fearful and hopeful not t...
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Sometimes I’m Leah and sometimes I’m Rachel. Sometimes I soar confidently, secure in my position and exhilarated by life. Sometimes I sink in a mire of insecurity and doubt. Sometimes I f...
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They called it the 50 yard dash. I was introduced to it at recess in first grade. I knew I was bad before anyone told me, in fact maybe that’s why I was so pitiful. I knew when we lined o...
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I trace my finger over the outline of her baby portrait. Dated and a bit color-bleached, I gaze at my daughter’s sweetness staring at me from behind the glassed frame. I mark her wide eye...
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Merry Christmas from our hearts to your home
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The richness of Handel's Messiah rolled over me in crescendoes. It filled my house with its heavenly music. Christmas isn’t Christmas without it. “Mom, we lost baby Jesus again!” my frust...
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“Who is this King of glory?” David asks in Palm 24:10. “The LORD…” YAHWEH. The Existing One. Yahweh is the proper name of the one true God in the Old Testament. Without vowels in its orig...
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A dirt road led to the house I grew up in. I loved that road. Impassible in winter, a mud pit in spring, and like the dust bowl in summer. No other house sat on that road. It was the way...
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I used to stuff little arms into sleeves like a turkey at Thanksgiving. But somewhere between the years of babies and grand babies, the art went south. I’m all thumbs, trying to capture s...
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My Christmas list looks like a paper war zone. I have crossed off, scribbled over and shifted names and gifts until there isn’t much space left to write, and no I am not done yet. I am no...
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There is a whole lot of happenings that go before the birth of a baby. My soon-to-be-born grandson’s nursery took shape with a coat of paint, a baby bed, changing table, and rocking chair...
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No one is higher. “He will be great, and will be called Son of the Highest” Luke 1:32; NKJV, the angel told Mary. He is as high as high gets. Son of the Highest is like the title God Most...
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“For out of you (Bethlehem) shall come a Ruler who will shepherd My people Israel.” Matt. 2:6; NKJV. I love the idea of ruler-shepherd. It’s almost an oxymoron, two impossibles joined tog...
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“…and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6; KJV. When Isaiah penned those words, Israel was being decima...
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“I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End,” says the Lord. Jesus had a birthday. Just like us, from the day He drew His first breath, time moved toward His death. Alpha and...
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I peeked at the little form of my granddaughter. Black eyelashes quivered against pale cheeks as she kneeled at the bedside of her mommy. “Jesus, peeease help her move again,” she prayed....
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So the bad dude king, Herod, called his chief priests and scribes together for a little pow-wow, a sneaky set-a-trap-for-the-baby kind of meeting. “Where is He who has been born King of t...
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Christmas lights are evil, my friend wrote on a facebook post. I know what she means. Tangled strands that don’t light are irritating. But the original Christmas lights were a different s...
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“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?” Matt. 2:2. “For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” Growing up, our family put up our tree the day after Tha...
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Picking a baby’s name is a big deal. Seriously. Our third daughter was three days old before we agreed that Charity she would be for all eternity. Mary and Joseph didn’t have that dispute...
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One of my dearest friends lay in the cold Kansas soil. November winds blew the tree limbs outside the window where we sat. My husband and I listened as the grieving spouse talked, his sor...
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Mary the maidservant of the Lord found herself in an unimaginable situation. A child grew within her, Son of the Highest, without human father and apart from the curse of sin. Fully human...
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I’ve often wondered why the good news came first to shepherds. They weren’t influential or powerful. They had a hard time keeping the Sabbath because sheep needed constant protection. She...
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Baby Luca cries that heart wrenching pierce of a little soul in despair. It stabs my own as I jiggle him up and down against me, that continual parental dance. My grandson’s body melts in...
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“and of his kingdom there will be no end…” the angel told Mary. Luke 1:32-33; ESV. “This takes forever,” my husband complained, scrutinizing his blank computer screen. Forever is a very l...
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Christmas commercials, jingles, and reindeer are pleasant interruptions to sour evening news. Current events shine stadium lights on our culture's rampant sin. World rulers add a sense of...
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One tiny fist stretches high above my newborn grandson's head. Like a miniature superman ready for take off he poses against the soft blue blanket where he lies. He uncurls his legs, elon...
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Flour whitens the front of my shirt like snow. I brush at it fruitlessly with a hand sticky with wrinkled bits of dough like hanging chads. My counter space, with its strict no fly-zone i...
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God is always on time, yet I often wonder why He waits so long. I tilt the scissor's blade against the length of bright red ribbon. Curls slither through my fingers in tiny ringlets where...
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Proclamation 118—Thanksgiving Day, 1864 October 20, 1864 Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November...
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(My husband Phil writes about his father.) There were those who went before us to battle against a great evil in our world decades ago. There are fewer and fewer of those World War II vet...
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Thanksgiving tangled with unanswered prayers. I slumped against the antiseptic tiled hallway. My stalwart, “Hang on and hold it in,” gave way to unrestrained tears like prisoners let free...
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“Teach me,” my words stumbled out. “Teach me how to lose my daughter.” Surely this godly woman who’d lived through the horrific murder of her son could tell me how to keep from drowning i...
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Ps 78:5-7 “…That they should make them known to their children; That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their...
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And it came to pass in those days, the wife was harried, and the husband bombarded. Time was ticking like a clock, calendar pages flipped like a fan and a list of one million and two thin...
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The crowd raises to its feet around the auditorium, a representation of a myriad of countries. Former missionaries who served in Brazil, Mali and Russia stand to sing. An elderly man, his...
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Sometimes the dots line up, and we connect one to the other and the picture is clear. We see what God was trying to do and we say, “Oh, I get it. That’s why that had to happen that way.”...
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My children had some hefty arguments when they were young. Words became darts. “She said,” “He said” often spiraled into something I had to step into. I needed to... Read the full devotio...
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Tired and worn after a difficult meeting, I’m eager to be home. The sight that greets me when I open the door is a dirty pan and a dish with lunch scraps. “At least he could have.... Read...
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“…He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.” Daniel 4:35; NKJV In anticipation of what could be one of the worst storms of modern history...
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It hits my life again. That inevitable desire to connect my circumstances with the actions of another and search for blame. “That woman you gave me,” Adam complained when confronted with...
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I walked around the room with a rubber duck in my hand. I laid it in plain sight on a shelf of the book case. It’s classic yellow face and orange bill pointed to the door where my daughte...
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I’m not a good lover. Let me pause before you think I just handed you more information than you care to receive, like a bad Facebook post. Here is what I mean: I don’t know how to love li...
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We are celebrating forty-three years of marriage. All you math people stop it. Just stop. It is a long time, that’s the point. I have spent forty-three years trying to figure out that “ma...
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So, we are in the "path of totality," dead center for the total eclipse of the sun. It’s a little crazy. Major interstates are closing, people are camping out, hotels are full, and busine...
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From the back seat window the countryside slid by. Green grape vines draped across wooden stakes like outstretched arms. The road ahead curved to the left, I knew it well. A hen, halted m...
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I watch my grandson knee high as he bumps from one trousered pair of legs to another across the crowded room. His vision fills with legs knee high. Unless he looks up, they are like a for...
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The seconds tick at the cash register. We shake out our Italian, like a moth-eaten shirt, and blink away the fog of jet-lag. Everything is a de-j-vu of having been and done long ago. Phil...
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After three daughters, it was only natural that our youngest son should have four mothers. I just wasn’t expecting how tight those sibling-mommy bonds could be. When one of them forgot to...
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There is a sudden ache in my gut, like I’ve been kicked. As much as I prepare for hospital-sterile, IV’s and blinking lights, the moment I enter my daughter’s room I cannot stop the sudde...
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Japanese rubbish took over five years to hit our shores after an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s shores in 2011. Everything from house parts to car parts, about 20 million tons...
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Generations, like peanut butter and jelly, are layered lavishly one upon another at the tables. Like a train of blessing, bowls with steam rising and platters overflowing, pass from big h...
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Back in the day when “missionary” brought to mind pith helmets for the men and polyester ruffles for the women, my husband and I took three little girls away from their grandparents and e...
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I am into the fear of God. It seems to neon-light itself at me throughout Scripture. People have turned it into an undesirable emotion, but the fear of God is a good thing. The book of Pr...
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Sometimes being a mommy was like the ocean that disappeared into sand. Vast and unmeasurable, mommy-hood was never completely accomplished or satiated. Its demands drained, yet its beauty...
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I wedged myself half onto my daughter’s hospital bed. The other half rested uncomfortably over the gap between my cot and Charity’s paralyzed body. I’d prayed every possible prayer in eve...
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“The week of the goat,” I will label it. It began the day I came home from school to find a goat tied up in our yard. For a thirteen-year-old it wasn’t cool, and as the bus came to a stop...
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Lovingkindness. I linger over the word like a morning cappuccino. I lean my head back, close my eyes, and savor it. “Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning; for I trust in You” (P...
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“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:15; NKJV. When Phil and I left for Italy with a two-year-old, a four-year-old and...
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The sun was shining. Blue sky filled the kitchen window. My eight-year-old daughter played in front of our house with friends. I could hear voices, a mixture of laughter and children’s bo...
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They watched the One they loved suffer agony and succumb to a tortuous death. It was the greatest event of history, but they likely didn’t realize it. To experience exceeds preparedness....
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My name is Sylvia and I am technophobic. Technology scares the crud out of me. “Hover,” my husband advises. “Just hover and see if it is a good site or one that will eat your computer ali...
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The car doors slam, and we slide into opposite sides. We look at one another, then sit silently and think over the last hour. The question comes again: “Will we be like that?” As our car...
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I plunked her diaper-padded bottom into the shopping cart and directed two little legs into the slots. The mission began. I had one hour, one child with me, two others at home, and a whol...
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Spring Cleaning My hands immersed in suds, I stand at the kitchen sink and gaze at the aura of green tinging the trees against blue sky outside my window. Buds are beginning to open. A hi...
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My husband and I get a kick out of mistranslations, written instructions or explanations into English from another language. Perhaps it's because we have been on the other side. Language...
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“For our citizenship is in heaven…” I hold the blue covered booklet in my palm. Lines of weary travelers are long. They hold passports in green, maroon, and brown, irreplaceable identitie...
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“You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” (Psalm 89:9, ESV) There are storms and then there are STORMS. On the scale of 1-10, ten being hurricane level, I rem...
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In the In-Between I sat on the cold window ledge and leaned my forehead against the glass, looking out at the hospital garden. Brown earth, dried and brittle, had replaced the green of mo...
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“So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel.” (I Kings 18:20; NKJV). Let me paint the scene. A range of mountains, called the Carmel r...
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For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. I woke up this morning and felt like I’d lasted longer than my shelf life. I’m tired, weary and it is the just the first month of a...
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We met in the living room. Two couples. Older and younger. Married and about-to-be. My husband and I, the older and married pair, sat on stuffed tweed chairs across the coffee table from...
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“…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV). Backgrounds. Everyone has them. They are the backdrop of our...
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After a weird night of outside noises, my foggy early morning Bible reading arrives at Revelation 3:20. The familiarity of its long ago memorized words steal into my heart immediately lik...
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Herod the Great ruled Jerusalem and its surrounding villages with cruelty and deceit. His ruthless murders made him almost as famous as the magnificent building projects he instituted. Du...
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It may be that Christmases have sped up, maybe they really do come more often, or possibly it’s time warp of aging, but it is that time of the year again. I have a billion things to do, a...
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Once upon a time, long long ago, before people knew better than to celebrate Christmas in schools, when the principal could still haul a student to the office for a whopping, a second gra...
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“I’ll still be here,” he whispered as he climbed back into bed next to me. The sun still slept outside the dark window. Chill replaced the warmth of good-bye hugs, of little arms around m...
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I pull a faded black suitcase, it’s wheels rumble over the sidewalk, a grey path between verdant green. The rhythm of smooth concrete broken by lines reminds me of the clickety-clack of a...
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I am writing this one week before the American election. I figure I will need to read it to myself after the election. Several times. Repeat after me. And the prize goes to… Romans 13:1-2...
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“Thank you for the sghetti,” my daughter prayed. Her little fingers entwined into a ball were folded against the edge of the kitchen table. Her forehead puckered and her eyes squinted. Th...
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“For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” Ps. 73:3 (NKJV). Asaph, King David’s talented musician had issues. He agonized over life’s inequality and unf...
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Hot tiny hands warm both sides of my cheeks, smooth and just a little bit forceful. They pull my face upward from where I sit engrossed in my screen so our eyes are even. Hers, translucen...
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If people would ask me how I feel about the event of my daughter’s paralyzation nine years ago, I might want to say a lot of things. One is that it makes me sad in waves of sorrow. Period...
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I confess. I yell at the TV. I’ve even thrown a pillow or two. Watching media news at our house looks much the same as watching a football game, albeit a very depressing one. Why watch yo...
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https://youtu.be/Vv6YnfUfD4U She knelt by the bed as if in prayer, the soles of her pajama footies upturned, her little body in plain sight. A blanket covered her head. In two-year-old lo...
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My perspective has been askew recently, I think. The airplane dips its wing to the right in a slow descent arc above Genoa, Italy. I lean forward and gaze through a tiny oblong window. Be...
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My family drives one another crazy with the pause button on the TV remote. We pause to go to the bathroom, we pause to get something to eat, and we pause because someone didn't catch on a...
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My net has holes. “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.” Matt...
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My dad sang like Pavarotti, my mom accompanied him as if she could read his heart. Because they were so talented, we sang. A lot. Evenings we often gathered around the piano and harmonize...
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As a Father “I can’t fix her,” ragged sobs shook the bed where we slept. For just a moment I thought I was home in Italy again where sometimes the earth trembled, but then I recognized th...
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Check Your Words at the Door, Please “…From the same mouth come blessing and cursing, My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” James 3:10 (ESV) I remember the gagging rancidity of s...
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Ephesians 5:33 (ESV) However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. As Pastoral care workers for our mission agency, my husband...
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To my dear daughters and daughter-in-law, who are doing a priceless job of being mommies who love Jesus and train my grandchildren to love Him as well. People say it will all be done in a...
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From the back of the car, three kids sang with megaphone voices. “Keep your tongue from evil, keep your tongue, Keep your tongue from evil keep your tongue.” The melody echoes in my memor...
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Squiggled blue and red lines crisscross between Kansas City and our destination. The map divides my screen into roads and rivers. I know where I’m headed, but I don’t know the route. This...
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Scenes of carnage replay across the screen. Footage shows people running, crying, bleeding, images of devastation and grief. Brussels, Paris, even Hesston Kansas, fifteen miles from where...
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My pocket vibrates a split second after Phil’s buzzes. We both reach for our phones, quick on the draw. Our 16-month-old-grandson has the flu and we are anxious. The text reads, “He is so...
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“What did Dad give you that for?” my son asked when I pulled out a bright yellow circular sander from a beautifully wrapped box. “I asked for it!” Bewilderment drew his brows together int...
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“It’s not gonna turn out good for you,” Phil tells the young man and his lovely wife sitting close together on our couch. Their lives are about to tumble like clothes in a dryer. Packing...
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When our children were ten, seven and five, we blitzed throughout America for three months on a church-visiting, supporter-reporting, story-telling, home from Italy ministry tour. Our thr...
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“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”Hebrews13:8(NASB) Phil and I watched the series, Great Expectations over the holidays. I read the Charles Dicken’s classic in hi...
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Today is my son’s birthday. I wrote the following story over 20 years ago after he was born. It may be a little sappy, but is it a taste of the blessing he has been to us ever since the f...
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God’s timeline stretches, a banner of Sovereignty before time and ahead of time farther than any eye can see. Anna, advanced in years, a dot on the expanse of eternity, lived within the m...
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Can thankfulness really be commanded? “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thess. 5:18 (NASB) Well, yes, apparently it can. It is the season of g...
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To perform certain tasks well one needs the right tools. My husband informed me of this when to my starry gaze a bedroom remodel looked like Pinterest, Wayfair and HGTV all blended togeth...
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“Remind me again of why I love football,” I moaned. My gut sank while I watched another win slip into defeat. I felt like a deflated balloon. Not just for minutes, but for hours, even day...
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Have you ever wondered if someday you would be like the elderly person in front of you at the cash register? I wrote an article that appeared in an issue of Just Between Us about living a...
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I catch her busy little body as it flies by on thin legs and swing her onto my lap. She is the granddaughter of flaxen fairies, fair skin and fierce drama. Her legs pump air like a windmi...
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“I am so ready for an angel to come,” Phil said that morning. I’d been thinking the same. I got up from my cot next to our daughter’s bed and joined my husband where he stood at her side....
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“Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Matt. 9:37-38 NKJ...
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Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child…” The air mattress lay like a rubber raft in the middle of the living room, calling me to a short ni...
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“I am a God beggar,” I think, looking down into the hopeful eyes of my two-year-old grandson. I reach down and pull the tiny dimpled arms from around my leg, hold his chubby hands in mine...
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A wise man doth not comment on his wife’s diet. Certain subjects within marriage wisdom doth behoove us to tip-toe past. Weight gain and loss is one of those. Is important to keep yoursel...
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On the farm, after dark meant black. Light shone from a tall pole smack in the middle of the yard. A sphere of brightness left edges beyond with shadows that bent and swayed. The big grey...
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I am not a good rememberer, and it has much less to do with my age than with my desire. My husband loves to remember. He enjoys thinking about the past, pouring over pictures from years g...
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Jesus’ admonishment to the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane is intriguing. “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mar...
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Living in the Projects The upstairs of our house is down to its studs. A major project is underway. Between now and the vision of a new bathroom and bedroom is a gorge of unimaginable pro...
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There’s a whisper in my ear. “I can’t do this,” it says. I’ve heard that voice all my life. Sometimes it speaks softly, sometimes it hisses, and sometimes it shouts. In the first days of...
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My husband grew up the pale-skinned blond boy in a black and white background of Ecuador. A child of missionaries, he biked deserted dirt roads, rode in airplanes and ate iguana. Immune t...
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I’m hacking into the New Year. Struck down on Christmas Day with a cold and fever, and pushing through the fog ever since. From my sick bed, I watch the New Year roll into New York City....
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On November 26 our twelfth grandchild entered the world. It occurred, appropriately, just hours before Thanksgiving. Our son sent a picture of our brand new grandson cradled in his arms m...
Read Article(guest blog by Philip Schroeder) I was cleaning out old wood. I've worked with wood and construction since my teens years and am fully aware what the smallest of splinters can do to my ha...
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Thanksgiving tangled with unanswered prayers. I slumped against the antiseptic tiled hallway. My stalwart, “Hang on and hold it in,” gave way to unrestrained tears like prisoners let free...
Read ArticleIt is root canal morning. I hate root canals. I’ve got teeth that crumble like coffee cake, fortunately, my dentist is pretty good. I climb into the dental chair and the hygienist recline...
Read ArticleTo be honest, I’m going into the whole blog thing with a bit of kicking and screaming. Blogs come and go like the national debt ticker. I have technological deficits within my brain that...
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Call me a late bloomer, but pushing senior citizen status is really late for deep-seated rebellion to raise its obnoxious head. I’m not having some sort of delayed reaction to restrictive...
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Recently I talked to a friend armed with a list of bitter accusations. She began what soon became a blame saga with the words, “You’ll never know…” Since that conversation those words hav...
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I am overwhelmed. Too much to do, too many relationships, and too little time. Did Martha feel like this when Jesus told her that Mary had chosen the better part? “Martha was distracted w...
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