Good morning... I inched my way through thick Friday traffic to get to Lake Lanier Islands for our "Made for More" women's retreat. I arrived early, settled into my room, then went out into the woods to breathe before our 7:00 pm dinner. The winter sun was setting, and I didn't want to miss it. As I sat [...]
Good morning... Enjoying a short visit with my parents in Ohio, I ran across a half page paper on a table in their villa. Reading the words out loud to myself, I thought, "An oak tree. What a wonderful symbol of my parents as people." At ages 88 and almost 87, [...]
Good morning... As we drove home from a wonderful wedding weekend, Steve and I listened to a podcast which included a story about two wolves. Later, I researched the Native American tale. I invite you to take three minutes to enjoy the retelling of the first version I uncovered. “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. [...]
Good morning... It happened again. One message miraculously seeped into another. Yesterday's post ended with this wisdom: "As our self-protective shell comes completely undone, everything, everything changes." I pushed "send" on our blog then immediately opened a new email containing the poem below. It's as if the Holy Spirit had more to share with us about the "seed" [...]
Good morning... Spending quality time with a friend who is seventy-eight years old, I read aloud to her this poem written by Becky Hemsley. "I have spent my whole life trying to please people," she responded. "It's exhausting and impossible. This poem gives me permission to just breathe and be me." Now as you read aloud this life-giving [...]
Good morning... When I arrived at our therapeutic community group at PAWkids yesterday morning, I didn't know what "blob" from the "blob tree" described how I felt (this is a check-in ritual we share each week). My emotions were deeply muddled. I had just received a return text from a close friend who lives in Athens, Georgia, and, [...]
Good morning... "We heal what we feel," said Ron Greer, author of The Quiet House. I felt a lot when my dad said last night, "Today, I got a tree at Loews." Together, we reminisced about our annual trek around a tree farm as a family, cutting down our favorite Christmas bush (it was always wider than it [...]
Good morning... Last week in our therapeutic community group, we took a walk down the block to notice the various autumn trees. Black. White. Young. Old. Together as a diverse group we discussed the reading below. Think about it. Really think about it. In your mind's eye, what difficult person might you to turn into a [...]
Good morning... One thing I love most about being a mom of four young adults is watching God-given gifts grow out of our kids. Our youngest son, Jeremiah, is a hands-on hard worker who is helping to pay his way through college. Lots of you have used his pressure washing services for the past three summers and others [...]
Good morning... As I was walking in the woods, I came upon this tree, a tree branching up like the other trees while being strangled by barbed wire. The tree had naturally grown around the manmade injury, and the mark of excruciating pain had been embedded into the tree's unique identity. At first, I thought of the crown [...]
