Good morning... Our family’s life-changing move from PA to GA happened fifteen years ago next month. Over those extended years the seedling of my true self has settled into this southern soil, growing roots, sprouting more, spreading seeds. But I will never forget the beginning stages of my journey toward wholeness. When my dream-life was first uprooted, the seed [...]
Good morning... Hearing wisdom spoken feels different than reading truth with eyes alone. So I was intrigued when a friend told me of our well-loved poem being read aloud in a male's voice, "She Let Go." As I listen to this interestingly matter-of-fact rendition, I sense God seeing my subtle, silent bits of softly letting go. The eyes of [...]
Good morning... At our final Friday gathering of the semester, we shared the memorable words, quotes, and insights we loved best from Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak. In the course of our life-giving conversation, one of the women told us of an acronym her minister had recently shared. "Some asked me to repeat," she emailed later, "so here it [...]
Good morning... As she cut my hair, I read the tattoo on the underside of her left arm: “The happiest girls are the prettiest,” says the tattoo on the underside of her left arm. I thought to myself, “That statement is actually quite biblical.” Proverbs 15:13a (NLT) says simply: “A glad heart makes a happy face.” The second half [...]
Good morning... “Stillness is not about focussing on nothingness; it’s about creating a clearing. It’s opening up an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question,” writes author Brene Brown on page 108 of The Gifts of Imperfection. Stillness. Create a clearing. Open up emotionally. Protect clutter-free inner space. Allow feeling, thinking, dreaming, [...]
Good morning... "Contemplation is taking a long, loving look at something," softly said pianist Dana Cunningham during yesterday's Awake To Wellness Women's Retreat. This morning, I take a long, loving look at two stick figure people juxtaposed on my page of notes, a drawing etched as author Dr. Cathy Snapp joyfully taught. The skeleton stick figure on the left [...]
Good morning... "Nothing on our spiritual journey is ever final," says Betty Skinner on page 83 of my old, tattered copy of The Hidden Life. "It is a continuous change and movement from what is good (the place where most of us live, desiring to love and serve God) to what is better (an open and intense desire to [...]
Good morning... During my suffering season, I did share deeply with a small handful of old friends. That level of me was important to walk and talk through with trusted companions. And then there were two cloudy levels deeper, deeper still. My deepest core level was lived just with my God. Our hard-fought wrestling match, bout after bout, was [...]
Good morning... As I hazily recall my own walk down-and-up through the deep valley of depression, two words linger longest. Heavy and hollow. It is weird to feel heavy and hollow at the same time, like the shell of a 500 lb. chocolate Easter bunny who is empty inside. My depression was partially situational and mostly quite spiritual. God [...]
Good morning... At age 92, Betty Skinner is living Betty Skinner very, very well. Yet, as The Hidden Life Awakened by Dr. Cathy Snapp and Kitty Crenshaw creatively chronicles, for many years Betty stayed stifled beneath her smiling, southern role, silencing her special, sacred soul. With God hiding my updated edition somewhere in my home, I am coaxed to climb [...]
