Good morning... All week last week, Steve visited with his 94 year old mom in rural Pennsylvania. Cold. Windy. Harsh. He experienced a different kind of beauty found in our family's favorite summertime spot. Also last week, as my sister was preparing the traditional family Christmas calendar for [...]
Good morning... Last Friday night, I received this text from a friend. "At a Rally Foundation event," she wrote. "The DeShetlers just won a trip!! God's handiwork!" (As you likely remember, Audrey DeShetler's fifteen year cancer journey took her to heaven in June, ten hours shy of her twentieth birthday). Texting with Jennifer and our Fab Five friend [...]
Good morning... "From my writer/poet/mystic friend from high school," my friend texted me last night, sharing these touching words. "I love this," I replied. "ME too!" she responded. "He's gifted with tender words." I will add my own wonders to the list of a thousand different things. our new puppy licking [...]
Good morning... When I woke for the second time to take out our puppy, I noticed this wisdom gracing my phone. Texted by a friend at 3:19 am, these words resonated deeply. ****** You can grieve the what-would-have-beens and still thank Him for what is. You can miss someone deeply and still trust He's creating beauty from brokenness. [...]
Good morning... "God's beauty this am with our first snow," wrote a friend. Around 7:00 yesterday morning, she texted photos from her porch in Black Mountain, North Carolina. "Wow! How gorgeous," I replied, as my eyes savored the colors and the shadows and the textures. "Right now, I am looking at a pink sky also, as a new [...]
Good morning... After yesterday's post, Our Remedy For Fear, one reader wrote: "Man, what a great message! I have shared it around. God ripples. I also read Psalm 31 this morning. The praise and then the vent at verse ten but then back to praise." Instinctively, she chose a single sentence from our blog and jotted it on [...]
Good morning... On Saturday afternoon, I received his email. A tried and true friend, his words always boost me. "Hi, Sue," he wrote. "I encourage you to read Patricia Holbrook’s column on page C2 of today’s AJC, entitled 'When grief teaches us to live without regret.' I particularly like these words: 'For those of us left behind, though, [...]
Good morning... "I often think I don’t know how people endure the unimaginable," my friend wrote, "but then I realize I actually really do know - only God. And I see evidence of that in so much devastating heartbreak time and time again. I think of that Steven Curtis Chapman quote, spoken after losing his young daughter suddenly [...]
Good morning... For two fertile hours, I held it all, touched the joys and honored the sorrows. Our second fitness class, The Ministry of Movement, brought creative connection to about twenty-five vibrant women. Some have been through knee and back surgeries. Some are grieving the loss of loved ones. Some are living with a dreaded diagnosis. Some are [...]
Good morning... As thirty of us gathered at Mend Coffee last Tuesday morning to meet with author Katherine Wolf, she told us about the massive brain stem stroke that nearly ended her life at age twenty-six. As Katherine was fielding questions about her book Hope Heals, one woman said, "When you were unable to speak for a long [...]
