Good morning... This Christmas Eve morning many in our country wake in the dark to severe cold. Brutal weather. Derailed travel plans. Several go without. Without heat. Without a home. Without loved ones for the first time this Christmas season. All of us face stressors. Uncertainties run rampant. Expectations pile high. Pressures ratchet up, please, perform, perfect. On [...]
Good morning... "I enjoy reading your blog posts every morning," she said. "I rarely write you back, but I am grateful for your gift each day." Then came the question I often hear: "I'm worried about you, do you ever sleep?" Muddling through a polite answer, I forget exactly what I said. Later that night, in the dark [...]
Good morning... As the days shorten and the nights stretch long, we are instinctively drawn into holy hibernation. During these dark winter months, we stay inside more, watching and waiting for the life of Christ to be born in us anew. We are each miraculously made, hardwired to thrive in the silent dark, like babies in the womb, [...]
Good morning... Elizabeth, our friend's daughter-in-law who is battling colon cancer at age thirty-seven, writes an honest, faith-filled blog. I am grateful to regularly receive her inspiring messages. This week she wrote about the joy amid her swirling river of sorrows. ****** PostHope blog from December 3rd I had the joy and privilege to hear Sandra McCracken in [...]
Good morning... On Friday, November 4th, I was having one of those mornings. Down on me. Beating myself up. Frustrated with a selfish choice. After lingering longer motionless in bed, I went to my phone and opened this text. "Hey Sue!" she wrote. "I am thinking I will have an art show at my home studio. I would [...]
Good morning... Yesterday, the first Sunday in Advent, my cell phone was filled with two tender text strings from our Monday and Friday groups. As our fall classes have ended, something new is beginning. Physically separate and mysteriously together, we're texting to process new births, fresh fears, and cross country moves. We're facing first holidays with cancer and [...]
Good morning... The first two emails I receive today whisper to my soul, "Wholeness is happening." One email looks outside; the other looks inside. Over time, I sense the two merging and multiplying. The photo above came from the country of Norway, which for me in Atlanta, Georgia is the far side of the globe. "These days the [...]
Good morning... "Loving your offerings!" wrote an old friend after yesterday's post Our Little Oil Lamp. "We are in Jerusalem and heading to the Old Jerusalem shortly. I have seen replicas of these little oil lamps and it makes me smile to read your morning sharing!" Soon after came the voice of another friend over the phone. "The [...]
Good morning... Monday morning's drizzle drenched our outdoor furniture, so our afternoon class was drawn inside. Our intimate circle of women savored a life-giving conversation, reading these words aloud from page 43 of Simple Faith by Margaret Silf. ****** Turning Contemplation into Action I have a little oil lamp that a friend gave me, and it's a constant [...]
Happy Halloween! "Everyone must decide," said Martin Luther King Jr., "whether to walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness." "To be a person of faith is to make a choice to center one's life around the deeper center of gravity we call God, and the greater good of all creation, rather [...]
