Good morning... Yesterday, my dad sent me a really encouraging article. After offering nineteen powerful thoughts, the author concludes, "Find one, two or 10 you can relate to — and use them effectively in your daily life." I actually found five which speak to me most loudly. Now as you read through these nuggets of wisdom, which top [...]
Good morning... If we were to send out a Christmas card this year, we would likely share this sweet family photo from the September day our son Kyler married his amazing wife Chandler. What you would not see is the bitter of the hurricane sweeping through Charleston, S.C. two days before, or the bitter of my parents missing [...]
Good morning... As I emerged from a time of deep down prayer, I noticed anew the layers of light living in our home. How often do we take time to notice the layers, the light, the power of life? Elizabeth, a young mom of three who is undergoing intense treatment for her colon cancer, wrote something in a [...]
Good morning... "I am going to read a Mary Oliver poem for Thanksgiving as part of our family's blessing," she texted. "Will you take a picture of the poem you choose and share it with me?" I replied. "I will be deeply with you in Spirit." Thursday at 8:41 am, I received her inviting selection. [...]
Good morning... "What do joy and grief have in common?" asks poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. "...The ability to evoke feeling that pushes us and opens us and helps us to be compassionate and helps us fall in love." In the 10-minute video below, released yesterday for this holiday season, Rosemerry reads poems that span grief and joy from [...]
Good morning... For years we have heard stories about the hometown of our good friends who grew up in Circleville, Ohio. Rural. Midwest. Duplexes. Trailer parks. Picking up road kill for a summer job. Using a choke hold to settle an argument. Walking or biking everywhere. Penny candy store. Drive in movie theatre. Community swimming pool. Public basketball [...]
Good morning... "Miss Sue! Miss Sue!" said two eighth grade counselors-in-training in our after-school program at PAWkids. "Can we get our picture taken with you?" I felt joy on many different levels. First, I have become enough of a regular around this special, bonding place in the Grove Park community that these kids know me by name. How [...]
Good morning... Can you imagine my joy seeing my mom's joy as I received the photo above? A fun moment captured on the front porch of their villa and texted to me by my dad last week, my animated mother is pictured reading a book with her first great grandson and my sister. My 85-year-old mom has been [...]
Good morning... I love this image from Kate Bowler's devotional for the week. The picture gently holds hands with title of her email. "Joy is the oxygen for doing hard things." This subject line is a quote from Gary Haugen who runs International Justice Mission, "a non-profit organization committed to liberating vulnerable individuals from the clutches of modern [...]
Good morning... I pull out my copy of In the Shelter by Padraig O Tuama and turn to page 25. I read on from the sentence that first captivated me on Sunday. "Good writing, the adage tells us, is when we read something we've always known but never been able to put to words," writes Padraig. "I remember [...]
