Good morning... "Dear Sue," a loyal friend wrote yesterday. "You have been in my heart lately; with prayers for your Mom (and Dad) and for you as you stretch your own heart full circle. Today’s post from you with that wonderful jar image, and today’s message from Bishop Wright work together beautifully to illustrate the stark reality of [...]
Good morning... In the morning, I watched the trailer below, a trailer for The Barefoot Artist, an inspirational documentary about Lily Yeh. "Our world is full of darkness. What can an artist do?" asks Yeh. At 84 years old, Lily is fueled by the profound belief that people can instill social change by creating art projects in some [...]
Good morning... On Tuesday morning, I received two emails, back to back. ****** Good morning, Sue, It has been a while since I have reached out to you, but know that I am a faithful reader who finds a link to God every morning within your thoughts. However, yesterday was particularly meaningful, truly God sent, as I slipped [...]
Good morning... We canceled class last month due to our southern snow, so yesterday was our first Sunday afternoon gathering of this new semester. How wonderful it was to share prayer concerns, unpack tangled thoughts, and glean nuggets of life-giving wisdom. Our book for this season is a treasured classic, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. Here [...]
Good morning... "Mom, don't you get drained with so many hurting people depending on you?" asked our daughter Tessa, as she saw me texting and talking with a handful of people going through some really hard things. "No, actually, it is a great privilege to walk closely with people through the challenges of life," I heard myself say. [...]
Good morning... As a retired english teacher, he said, "Every year, I would share with the kids my favorite Hemingway quote." The greatest act of courage is getting out of bed each morning. Right now, my prayers are with the courageous ones who are facing the difficulty of illness, Alzheimers, powerlessness. The courageous ones who are experiencing the [...]
Good morning... Like light seeping into the chilly winter dark, God finds a way to find us where we are. "Sue," a friend wrote, "I too have been drawn to Bonhoeffer in the last week. His little book, God Is In the Manger, has some of his Christmas sermons." Then she shared a portion of Bonheoffer’s Christmas letter [...]
Good morning... Yesterday my friend and I went to see the movie Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, a theologian, and an anti-Nazi dissident who was executed by the Nazis in 1945 just two weeks before the war ended. Chronicled in his many books and expressed in his heroic actions, Bonhoeffer's life of faith was extraordinary. [...]
Good morning... Hurricane hell. Deep depression. Open heart surgery. Harsh cancer treatment. War and terror. Division, divorce, and death. Darkness seems to seep into every crevice of our wounding world. "The power of God's promise stunned me so much that I actually gasped out loud," writes Kay Warren on page 105 of Choose Joy. I will give you [...]
Good morning... I have been emailing back and forth with my special friend, Gina Macfarland, who lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Yesterday, she sent me a very real, very touching documentary created to shed light on the vulnerable human experience in the wake of Hurricane Helene. "In all the heaviness, almost every time there is an equal [...]
