Good morning... As this fall semester comes to an end before our winter/spring semester begins, it dawns on me that I have been blogging most days since the fall of 2015. Ten years of waking in the wee hours, opening up two-way-street veins of private prayer, seeking to discern the presence, the patterns, the power of our living [...]
Good morning... Yesterday's blog post included one of my favorite Bible verses. Before leaving earth for heaven, Jesus told his followers, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8, NIV). I [...]
Good morning... This week we received handwritten envelops, one for Steve and me as well as one addressed personally to each of our four kids and our daughter-in-law. At ages 88 and 87, my parents are still sending out Christmas cards. Pretty amazing, right? I took this photo as I visited with them in Ohio earlier this month. [...]
Good morning... Last night was the final New Moon of the year. Dark. Dark. Dark. For three straight nights we experience great darkness. Tomorrow night is the winter solstice, marking the exact moment when half of Earth is tilted the farthest away from the sun. This God-ordered, natural phenomenon creates the shortest day, the day with the least [...]
Good morning... After a crazy ten hour travel day for my seventy-five minute flight, my sister battled airport traffic to pick me up in Cleveland, Ohio. Happy to be together, we arrived around 11:00 pm at our parents' independent living villa in their senior living community. With their teeth out and their jammies on, our parents hugged us [...]
Good morning... "Was that you walking down the street with a red tree last Friday?" asked a curious neighbor. "Yes. That was me," I replied. "The branches were cut from a large tree near the horse farm, and they were way too beautiful to be eaten by the wood chipper. So I brought them home." I was walking [...]
Good morning... The morning light of winter is living all over our walls. God's presence takes on a new forms as the leaves drop, the darkness lingers, and the cold draws us inside. Those who know me know that I work hard to follow God's lead to the next book for the weekly studies that gather in our [...]
Good morning... On this fresh fall morning, a song flows like a river from me to you. Enjoy the palpable presence of God, trusting that the river knows where it goes. You are like a tree, planted by flowing, cool streams of water that never run dry. Your fruit ripens in its time; your leaves never fade or [...]
Good morning... We are all designed to live each day from "...the place where our lives touch and mingle with God's. A shared space, a center," writes Sue Monk Kidd on page 61 in God's Joyful Surprise. This crucial concept expands all over these holy pages. "A center is not simply an inner place where you are in [...]
Good morning... "Our psalm for the week is 31," she wrote, "and this was in the devotional I received from the church this morning. Thought I’d share." ****** Psalm 31 reminds us that trust isn’t a feeling; it’s a decision made in the middle of fear. It’s the steady rhythm of naming what’s hard and choosing to believe [...]
