Do You Really Wanna Be Full? 

“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 mark.  He looks around for mommy and with plate in hand heads for the chief cook, face washer, and […]

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What My MisMatched Shoes Taught Me About God

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 months of waiting. I’d done the rigamarole, you know, filling out a million forms, listing all the gross details of […]

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Is the Devil Really in the Details?

“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 with a major decision and sometimes even in relationships.  I get the sentiment behind the statement, “the devil is […]

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When Heads Come Together

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 cheek against the soft hair of her child. A daddy, his son in his arms, leans to connect forehead to forehead. Bowing over […]

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Recognizing You on Father’s Day Even Though Your Hair Is Gray

“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 himself. His twenty-year-old-self-portrait imagination inhabited an older person he didn’t recognize immediately.  But I’d know him anywhere.   If my twenty-year-old […]

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Does Putting Ourselves First Come Naturally?

“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 same vain and I understood a bit of where it was coming from, but really didn’t like where it headed. Filled with […]

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what is behind the clouds

Going Beyond Clouds That Hide the View

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 explodes inside of me. Going beyond the clouds I find everything brilliant again and the view clear. Gloom is […]

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Catching Up with Life

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-retired people. I know, I know, I’ve heard all my life how busy retirement is, and I’ve rolled my eyes. In about […]

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Are You Looking High Enough?

You know that wonderful feeling of having connected with someone of your same interests, passions or thinking? That feeling of he or she gets me? Psalm 139 is a great reminder of just how much God gets us.

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Little Boys, Escape Artists and Cunning Hearts 

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 locked doors. We have an escape artist who runs like the wind into the middle of the street, one stealthy […]

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