Good morning... "Ah! So perfect! This one is for me!" she emailed me after yesterday's post, The Back Roads Of Your Self. "Up at 4:00 am because of jet lag after a wonderful month with my husband wandering the gorgeous back roads of France. Feeling so free then and now feeling a little overwhelmed by the highway life. [...]
Good morning... "So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self." This Marcus Aurelius quote visits me like an old friend. Traveling the highway is rush hour, heavy traffic, efficiently direct. Exploring the back roads is slow moments, uplifting alone-time, freedom to meander. On the back roads of ourselves, God whispers through our rolled down [...]
Good morning... After a deep, heartfelt conversation, she said, "For Lent, I am giving up trying." I thought to myself, "That's a weird thing to say." At first. Then the thought strangely returned to me. Then again. And quietly, just now, again. As I sit still with her phrase in the middle of the night, I begin to [...]
Good morning... After snapping a photo of still branches silhouetted in purple gray, I revisit a quote shared by a friend before the dawn of a new day. "Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even when it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure [...]
Good morning... Two women in our Monday group have lost their sons this year. One young man was forty-three, the other was eighteen. For these grieving mothers, Thanksgiving was quite hard. The absence felt so loud. As I happen upon this poem, I wrap my prayers for these two moms in the communion feast of silence. ****** The [...]
Good morning... "What is Labor Day?" my husband asked some of his high school students last week. "A day off to honor the military," one girl replied. "No," said another, "I think it's about mothers who have given birth naturally." Still another said, "I think it has something to do with unions." My personal answer is even weirder [...]
Good morning... As the song from yesterday's blog post ended, I was mysteriously led into a music video entitled "The Story Behind - The Anchor Holds written and performed by Lawrence Chewning." "We had one of those years," Lawrence admits. "It was 1992. My wife and I call it 'our year of sorrows.'" Pain piled up. The death [...]
Good morning... "Loved your reflection, Sue," after yesterday's post, The Perfect Getaway. "The amazing power (His not ours) of being still and truly listening! And now God speaks in stereo as I screen shot the verse I happened upon late last night." "The LORD will fight for you; you need only be still," says Exodus 14:14. In stillness, [...]
Good morning... When the Spirit nudges me awake in the middle of the night, our home is very quiet. I hear the air conditioner kick in to cool off. I notice the rhythmic breath of our sleeping dogs. I pick up the campy conversation of hidden insects outside. Deepening into the now of now, this sweet, still silence [...]
Good morning... Sitting at her picnic table, sipping our coffee, we read aloud yesterday's blog post, Buoyed By Good News. After we were done reading together, my nearly ninety-one year old mother-in-law said, "There are about three concepts there I really want to discuss." We opened our individual copies of Falling Upward to page 90, and I began [...]
