My phone dinged, “How about a hike?" came from daughter in law, Lollie. They picked me up a few minutes later, and we were off for The Pocket Trail in Chickamauga, GA. The boys were strapped in back when they arrived, listening to Harry Potter. Lollie seemed different--serious and quiet. Once we were on our…
I read, “Surely God is my help;the Lord is the one who sustains me.Let evil recoil on those who slander me;in your faithfulness destroy them,” Psalm 54:4-5. Wait.Not that last part, God. Not destroy.Redeem my enemy and me. Swallow our strife. Open blind eyes.Like the centurion, who saw Jesus and believed,while at his post,doing business.…
I’ve been lying in front of this window in our foyer for so long, I’m beginning to see faces in the tree trunks and branches. One face smiles broadly while shielding its eyes, looking out from under its leafy mask, no doubt an identity disguise. Tree trunk faces are piled up one on top of…
Listen to today’s post, read aloud by Eve Our “baby” of five kids is just two short weeks away from being 21. It occurs to me that even though he’s living with us temporarily and working, he’s for all intents and purposes grown, though maybe not entirely gone. It also occurs to me that it’s…
I was the family gift wrapper, the child asked to wrap even her own Christmas gifts. My mother would give me a taped box with an unseen gift inside. I liked nothing better than a stack of boxes, a bag of bows, and rolls and rolls of patterned paper. I loved the sounds of wrapping—the…
Your words are heardWhile on this earth.A heart is stirred.So begins rebirth. My take away hereIs God for the win, The magic-mirror, And love never ends.I'm never nearerTo him than whenI let go of fearAnd let him in.When love shows the way,I can rest in the search,Hear what you say,Get down off my perch. Let…
Guard your turf,Avenger-God,Judge of earth.Pay back the proudfor their loud mouths.How long, O Lord,will the wicked be glad?How long will their wordsboast and brag?They pummel your people;they crush your kids.They kill widows and orphansand immigrants.They believe you don't see.Well, listen up, fools!Get a clue!God makes the rules. Give him his due!Ear creator hears.Eye designer sees.Knowledge…
When I stumble in my spiritual life, whether it’s a whole-hog wallow or just a baby toe in the dirt, my comeback is the same: I turn around and head home to the Father. And I receive his love and forgiveness. And then I head into the after-party. Pretty simple, really, regardless of whether it’s…
God, you’ve been our home since Adam. Before the mountains were born, before you birthed the world, before time began ‘til forever-- for it’s never over-- You. Are. God. You scooped dirt clods, breathed life into dust. You take back our breath, Say, “from dust-to-dust they must.” Mankind is nothing much. A thousand years in…
“Think, think, think...” (Pooh says, tapping his forehead.) What’s as good for Bears of No Brain at All as it is for Bears Who Fear Their Brain Is Going--or Gone? Using words, thinking, communicating. It's the last day of June, and I haven't posted anything yet. My goal is to write monthly, but I haven't…
I was dragging my feet getting ready. For as long as I can remember, we've had an open mike for folks to share their thank-yous the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Children often go first and warm up the crowd with sweeping praises, "Thank you, God, for the whole wide world," and with smaller ones, "We have…
My phone dinged, “How about a hike?" came from daughter in law, Lollie. They picked me up a few minutes later, and we were off for The Pocket Trail in Chickamauga, GA. The boys were strapped in back when they arrived, listening to Harry Potter. Lollie seemed different--serious and quiet. Once we were on our…
C. S. Lewis’s words from 1948 ring with relevance. Just replace “atomic bomb” with “coronavirus.” — Read on http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/cs-lewis-coronavirus/
No one made room for him, save the one who yelled, amidst hay and manure, blood and smells. And she prepared nothing, except to accept-- turns out was enough, she opened herself. The womb that bore him and the heart that said yes were filled with a Savior, to rule and to bless. "Prepare the…
Cries from my children used to wake me in the middle of the night, and after that, my teenagers’ calls saying they’d be late. Now, it’s a call from the bathroom. There are also the unexplained wake-up calls, the ones that tug me out of sound sleep for no reason I know of except to…
Time stops in the dark. Before dawn, it yawns and stretches. Putters. Lingers. Moseys. Puts on coffee. And sits. Waits. Makes room. I remember endless time before clocks and counting, when the first day of school and the last stretched out like Highway 16, Macon to Savannah. Nowyearscram instead of c r a w l…
The nest is empty. Our last fledgling is settled into college dorm life and has already slept through his first test, while his mama-bird, blissfully unaware, awoke to her to-do-or-not-to-do list, none of it involving him. I've been preparing Stone his whole life--and myself all year--for when he would be washing his own socks and…
I ordered my dream bed from a shop on Etsy, a carved and distressed French Victorian fit for a king and queen--or wannabes. I ordered it in late February and received it sixteen weeks later, a sign that unless the New Jersey shop owners were felling trees and building beds on demand, my bed was…
It looked like the perfect spot for our family's vacation: a rambling lakefront home in an out-of-the-way cove with covered dock, lots of porches, and plenty of bedrooms for our growing family of 15 with two more on-the-way. It's a challenge to find a house nice enough that merits dropping everything to be together for a week, but not…
The ache in my chest was a tight knot, a familiar feeling. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care, to push it down as I always had. I went for a bike ride on our trails, straining hard against the pedals to climb pasture hills as I pushed hard on the knot to force…
