Good morning... Gathering around the kitchen island as one dear friend prepared a birthday dinner for another dear friend, we were discussing how important Jerry and Anne Landers have been to our church family, for years and years and years. Teaching Sunday school. Leading Bible studies. Facilitating worship experiences. Instigating healing prayer. Volunteering on committee after committee. Sharing [...]
Good morning... As the full harvest moon slowly begins to empty and September breathes its last, I experience a strange occurrence. After taking our dogs out to relieve themselves in the middle of this night, I sit down on the couch to write. A few minutes later I hear a slow and quiet "creeeeeeeeeeeek." Moving cautiously toward the [...]
Good morning... As we wake on World Gratitude Day 2023, I am totally thankful for unplanned God-moments like the one I experienced yesterday morning. Okay. So we have random books strewn throughout our home. With six people having lived in our family for over the past twenty-eight years, we have remnants of days gone by littering our living [...]
Good morning... WOW. What a wedding. Our family of six grew another daughter on Sunday, as Chandler and Kyler Allen became husband and wife. Here are my top three Wonder Of Wonders. WOW #1: The Lord drew these two faithful young people together in an undeniable way, and God's [...]
Good morning... "Good morning Sue!" she wrote after yesterday's blog post, Might We Tip Toward Joy? "I loved this morning’s reflection! We are savoring the Western version of your friend’s joy-filled remedy for grief. Here in Jackson Hole with our adult children, along with one of their sweet girlfriends and another college friend, we are savoring gorgeous hikes, [...]
Good morning... "Two sentences stay with me from our text string this week," I wrote to a friend who is away at the beach. "I am wondering what you would think of me forming a blog post around your two lively sentences: 'In dealing with our transition, it is good to have crystal clear Caribbean water and sun...books...dinners [...]
Good morning... Yesterday, I flew to Cleveland, Ohio to watch my parents perform "Guys and Dolls" with sixty friends from their senior living community. The place is abuzz! At ages 85 and 86, they fit right in with the cast and the chorus members who range from age 72 to 96. Having practiced twice a week for months [...]
Good morning... As the passage of time naturally expands, we end one month before the next begins. Today is May. Tomorrow will be June. Like being caught in the invisible power of gravity, we can't escape the ticking away of time. Spring naturally tips into summer, that's just life's way. We can't go back. We can't stay here. [...]
Good morning... There is enough chaotic doom and gloom to fill every ounce of every day, but my attention is not drawn there. My focus deepens from the surface of things to form a quiet prayer, "LORD, what is my work to do in this wounding world?" A poem by Mary Oliver, read aloud to me by a [...]
Good morning... “My custom has always been to ponder grief; that is, to follow it through ventricle and aorta to find out its lurking places," writes Marilynne Robinson in the novel Gilead. "That old weight in the chest, telling me there is something I must dwell on, because I know more than I know and must learn it [...]
