Good morning... Because our newly refinished hardwoods are not ready to welcome a fresh-cut tree our main floor, an eight-foot Virginia pine this year is set up in our basement, the space where God and I host individual and group spiritual direction sessions regularly. After a sacred session this week, she and I marveled at the tree. "What [...]
Good morning... The nineteen year old son of a family in our community did not wake up yesterday, the morning after he had routine surgery to remove his appendix. Having a nineteen year old ourselves, I can not imagine the excruciating pain of his parents. Our seventeen year old son goes to school with the grieving brother and [...]
Good morning... "I love reading your daily blog messages," one subscriber writes. "So many of them resonate with how I am thinking and feeling." "As both you and your readers commented, so many of our hurt feelings are due to how we interpret comments of others," she observes. "Our interpretations highlight our insecurities and expose our false sources [...]
Good morning... During times of discombobulating stress, a helpful saying saturates me. "The brook would lose its song if God removed the rocks." We hate the hard knocks from life's jagged rocks, but we love the calming beauty babbling from the brook. Stones and songs. Songs and stones. We do not get one without the other. Stones and songs. [...]
Good morning... Our recent post, My Feelings Were Hurt, stepped on a very vulnerable nerve. So many responses came rushing in that I did not have the time to express gratitude to all of you individually. So this post is my collective "Thank you" for helping us to examine the bricks in the wall between our hurting hearts [...]
Good morning... I wake convicted of my unintended error. One sentence from yesterday's post is mistaken, misguided, misleading. I was wrong to write: "To forgive even the worst offender, we commit to not talk badly about the person, we commit to not think badly about the person, we commit to pray for the person, "letting it all be" in [...]
Good morning... Facilitating a book study in Florida, she sent me her favorite quote from the week: “The purpose of radically ordinary hospitality is to take the hand of a stranger and put it in the hand of the Savior, to bridge hostile worlds, and to add to the family of God.” (Rosaria Butterfield's The Gospel Comes With A [...]
Good morning... "...you answered my prayer when I shouted for help," said Psalm 31:22 as yesterday's post ended. Soon after I re-read these words written by Paula D'Arcy. ****** Excerpt from Seeking God With All My Heart The unexpected gift of my work in prisons has been occasional moments of unequalled poignancy. Once, following a general evening talk, a [...]
Good morning... I read aloud to the classes in our living room two poignant pages from Paula D'Arcy's most well-known book, Gift of The Red Bird, two pages that describe one life altering day. Paula and her husband Roy were enjoying a simple life with their first toddling daughter Sarah when we pick up their story. ****** Gift [...]
Good morning... "I'm LOVING your posts on tears," wrote one subscriber. "The psalm verse from yesterday's message has been a favorite. I clung to it through my divorce tears." Her written words continued. "Fun fact: tears caused by pain, when tested, are full of stress hormones; tears when cutting an onion are not. Tears are physically helpful in pain [...]
