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 has repeatedly come to her company’s attention. Perhaps you have received a similar text. It’s a scam. This […]
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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 and muttered in German, which is a whole other story. Our first apartment wasn’t chic, but we were just happy […]
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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 was met by hilarious expressions. The eye-watering, mouth-contorting, forehead-puckering, “what have you done to me?” ended with an all-out baby […]
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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 wrong way.” Her sassy remark has helped me remember a tea-technicality ever since. And on more than one occasion, it […]
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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 glory shining into the dark. It isn’t the first time God has displayed His light inside a penetrating darkness […]
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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 archeologist digging up dinosaurs. Who do you want to be when you grow up? Oh, so you think […]
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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 at night. She was going through a growth spurt like many children tend to do, with every hem of her clothing attesting to that […]
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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. Not offending others has become a national preoccupation. We are vigilant about what we say, how we say it, and whether or not someone […]
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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 through its rays, grandchildren’s sticky handprints on the window pane bother me, and tiny bits of red dirt speckle the floor. When the light shines into […]
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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 gesture, every accent and intonation. Suddenly she shot out a stiff arm, her hand like a rigid stop sign. “Too close! A leeettle too close.” Children […]
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