Good morning... “What kills a soul?" asks Shauna Niequist author of Present Over Perfect. She answers herself: "Exhaustion, secret-keeping, image management." "And what brings a soul back from the dead?" she wonders. "Honesty, connection, grace.” For me, what will it be? Exhaustion. Secret-keeping. Image management. Honesty. Connection. Grace. As I notice where my heart is drawn, I focus [...]
Good morning... Amid the chaos of this world, we are invited to experience the calm of God. Those who know Love will rejoice as the nations learn to cooperate, as the peoples of the earth recover their true heritage. The people say, "The time has come to dwell in peace and [...]
Good morning... "I saw this clip and it really resonated with me so I thought I'd share," wrote a friend from Florida yesterday. "Through grief I have found the deepest blessing and comfort in the love and laughter shared with friends. I think this is so true and a perspective to seek and focus on in trials, surrounding [...]
Good morning... "Sue," she wrote. "Yesterday a local acquaintance posted this on Facebook and I shared it with another still reeling from a death. I found it a different kind of living with grief, and it gave me comfort, even though it's been years since my Mother died." ***** The Sacred Work of Grieving by Spirit of a [...]
Good morning... When we feel snapped in half by the storms of life, the light of our living LORD continues to rise each morning and to set each night. At every time and in every place— from the moment the sun rises to the moment the sun sets— may the name of the Eternal be high in the hearts of His people (Psalm 113:3, [...]
Good morning... Three nights past the new moon, I happen upon an illuminating quote. “I always wondered why it took 'three days' for significant things to happen in the Bible," writes Barbara Brown Taylor in Learning to Walk in the Dark. "Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale, Jesus spent three days in the tomb, [...]
Good morning... Discussing our constant need for prayer, one friend paraphrased a Max Lucado quote like this: "Anxieties, fears and regrets land on our windshield but then comes the wiper of prayer that causes them to depart." Later, another friend shared with us the exact quote in its entirety. ****** Let God In by Max Lucado When we [...]
Good morning... Our weekly Thursday class decided to meet monthly in this summer season. As we gathered last week, one of the women shared a page from a devotional book she loves. She read the following words to us aloud, before we unpacked our thoughts as a group. The word "standby" [...]
Good morning... As my friend has been processing her extraordinary grief, she texted a sentence that touched my heart. "I just saw a quote," she wrote. "The pain is the leftover love you don't get to give." Fires, floods, feuds. Loss, lethargy, loneliness. Death, disasters, depression. Cancer, callousness, calamity. Betrayals, breakups, bombings. Accidents, addictions, Alzheimers. There are so [...]
Good morning... “When morning gilds the skies…” This familiar hymn, singing in my head, stirs me from my sleep. Instinctively, I look out the open window and shoot one photo through the screen. The word gild comes alive as the dark early morning sky is embellished with golden light from the moon and the stars. Then, I tiptoe [...]
