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, my cheek against hers. It was there my friend saw me as she entered the room. “Come on,” she said. […]
Continue ReadingSylvia Schroeder
Finding Balance When the Lava Flows
“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. His genius mom, with her creative birthday party juices, has done it again. Complete with lava cake and a “real” volcano […]
Continue ReadingIncomprehensible Faith
The incomprehensible actions of God are far beyond my feeble understanding or explanation. But they are real.
Continue ReadingAre You Walking In the Mire?
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 to side and in the arc. Piles of wet Virginian soil splattered. He’s too heavy to carry now, […]
Continue ReadingWhen Insignificant Connectors Pave the Way To Important Truths
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. Pieces of life felt disconnected. Then I read Psalm 92, a song sung as part of Old Testament Sabbath worship. It […]
Continue ReadingDo You Carry More Than You Should?
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 being paid to eat raw sparrow eggs and earnings gained per electric fence shock, they were the […]
Continue ReadingRed Hearts, Chocolates, and Five Bible Verses About God’s Love
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 as Betsy the cow at milking time. He amazed me with his one handed skill. His left hand […]
Continue ReadingIs It Too Difficult For God?
“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. It was a ritual, a new sort of rotten routine that had just a pinch of […]
Continue ReadingWhat Do You HAVE TO Worry About?
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 a kitchen window barely distinguishable through the balding trees. As more leaves fell, more house and lights showed. In full […]
Continue ReadingDoes God Hear Me?
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 see terror in his big blue eyes and quickly turn to find the little button to stop the loud […]
Continue Reading