Good morning... Julie Harlan smiles in heaven as she prepares for today's special day. Today, her oldest son Charlie will graduate from The Lovett School with a stadium full of his classmates. When Charlie was ten, his amazing mom died of stomach cancer at age forty-one. It's an honor to remember her bright shining spirit and to revisit [...]
Happy Mother's Day... After sharing photos from my dad's 88th birthday party last week, one friend wrote me a very kind email. "Sue, did you know that you and your mom both have a physical glow about you that comes from the inside?" she wrote. "I've begun to notice that [...]
Good morning... Out loud, we read this poem. ***** For When People Ask by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer I want a word that means okay and not okay, a word that means devastated and stunned with joy. I want the word that says I feel it all all at once. The heart is not like a songbird singing only [...]
Good morning... A handful of people disagreed with a quote I shared in our last post, a quote from John Mark Comer's book Practicing the Way. On page 74, Comer writes: “The spiritual teacher Pete Scazzero once told me a maxim that was passed on to him by an older, wiser mentor: ‘The best decade of your life [...]
Good morning... The cards I chose in our art activity this week highlighted the wisdom of Victor Frankel, laid out in Man's Search for Meaning. "Will I choose to behave like a swine (greedy, selfish, overindulgent) or will I choose to behave like a saint (peaceful, prayerful, at home in God's light)?" Through his experience in the concentration [...]
Good morning... Life gets busy for all of us. Schedules fill up. Routines settle in. It is very easy for weeks to pass without spending quality time together. Distance hinders. Commitments clash. Time can evaporate without meaningful connection. For our family, last night was different. At Christmas time, we gave the gift of Mamma Mia tickets at the [...]
Good morning... One long day in the ER. A short night in a regular room. Two exhausting days in the ICU. Suffering seizures and diagnosed with RSV, my mom was unresponsive for three full days. We did not know what we would find when we went to the hospital on day four. We got into the ICU around [...]
Good morning... On Sunday, our 28 year old daughter, Tessa, ran her first marathon in Houston. What an exciting weekend! Our whole family stayed connected by texts, and the photos and text string are priceless. Tessa's alarm went off at 4:30 am, and by 5:45 am we left the hotel in windy, 31 degree weather. Tessa walked to [...]
Good morning... Her text came in after I had climbed in bed last night. Now I wake in the middle of the night to read her words. "Happy New Year, Sue!" she wrote. "It has been a whirlwind with joys and sorrows, once again, at the same time. We are blessed with so many loving family members. The [...]
Good morning... A fun poem I met earlier in the week came to life at the PAWkids Christmas party. As a complete surprise, I was presented with a dozen red roses from the After-School Program Director. She was thanking me for all of the incredible Christmas bags our Northside Church women shared with the families of Grove Park, [...]
