Good morning... As my husband and I were away visiting my family in Ohio this weekend, our dog sitter retrieved from the front porch bag after bag, box after box, donated item after donated item. Yesterday, I spent time assembling and dropping off the fifteen Welcome Bags we created for the recovering women arriving for the ISP retreat [...]
Good morning... Flying home from Ohio in the early morning dark, I looked out the window and saw the intriguing image above. We were flying forward with black direction arrows pointing back. Somehow it felt like the world we are living in right now. Confusion. Conflicting messages. Flying forward while being directed backward. It reminds me of an [...]
Good morning... Last weekend, I led a retreat with thirty-two women for Kairos, a small Presbyterian church in town. God inspired the "Made for More" retreat material from a funny card I received several years back. Symbolically, we are all born as caterpillars, mindlessly munching the leaf upon which we [...]
Good morning... After reading yesterday's post, including words of wisdom from our spiritual mentor Betty Skinner, one friend texted me along with another friend. Know who and whose you are. Remember, "Gratitude is everything." Keep your mouth shut and your heart open. "These are my favorites!!!" she said. "Agreed!" replied our other friend. "I was thinking of the [...]
Good morning... Yesterday was Betty Skinner's sixth birthday in heaven. Betty was a Christian mystic and the heroine of my all-time favorite book, The Hidden Life Awakened by Kitty Crenshaw and Dr. Cathy Snapp. Incredibly drawn to her Jesus-like qualities, I took an annual pilgrimage to visit with Betty in Ponta Vedra, Florida for the last five years [...]
Good morning... As I walked with a young mom last week, we talked about the unique quality of friendships in the Atlanta area. So many amazing women come and go throughout the seasons of our lives. Without the regular overlaps which happen naturally in small town living, we need to be intentional about connecting with the important ladies [...]
Good morning... This week in class, we read aloud these words from the prologue of our book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. ****** Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in your life when you're cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from [...]
Good morning... "Part of hearing God is listening," she said, filled with Holy Spirit wisdom. Those in our monthly spiritual growth group automatically responded, "That's profound. Can you say the sentence again?" "Part of hearing God is listening," she repeated herself. I typed the six words into my phone, knowing I might share them with you. "Words can [...]
Good morning... As we came in from the sunny winter cold to celebrate a friend's 80th birthday with our Thursday morning class, I received photos from Ohio. "We have about 5" of snow and most schools are closed," my dad texted. "It's much worse in the snow belt east of Cleveland." "Snow days off school," was one thing [...]
Good morning... "Good morning, Sue!" her text greeted me first thing yesterday. "AHHHH!!! I can’t stop thinking about the ZESTY women and the ZESTY honest sharing yesterday - I feel one thousand percent closer to God in that transparent space than certain times in the past when I had all the perfect answers and impression of total certainty! [...]
