Good morning... If there were ever two scriptures designed to walk down the aisle together, these two would be the perfect pair. Marrying 1 John 4:8b, "God is love," with the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, we feel God's trustworthy character. Like a good math equation, if "God = love," we can replace the word "love" with the word [...]
Good morning... I passed a sign in the front lawn of a little church. "What you hold on to is your God." If I were the sign-putter-outer, I would change three things. The pronouns. The capitalization. And I would add one more word. "What we hold on to fiercely is our god." First off, God is God, and God [...]
Good morning... "Mom, why are you completely naked?" my seventeen year old daughter's voice shocked me into laughter. I had forgotten she was upstairs in bed, gifted with a free period before her day of school. While warm bath water was being drawn, I was lollygagging in the living room in my first birthday suit. Oh, how we surprised [...]
Good morning... God hangs on our wall a full-length mirror. "Christ is the deepest truth of our being." (David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself, p. 4) Staring into our clear mirror, we notice ourselves taking on the mind and the heart of Jesus. We witness the actualization of the Holy Spirit in us. More and more like Christ, [...]
Good morning... "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are," says Carl Yung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. 'Who we really are' is established by our Creator long before the day of our birth. Each of us whispers in wonder the words of Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT). "You made all the delicate, [...]
Good morning... If I sat behind your car at a red light, content with my 'Listener' license plate, I might discover these words inviting me from your personalized plate into the center of your soul. 'Caregiver.' 'Hopeful.' 'Mother.' 'Loving.' 'Teacher.' 'Sunshine.' 'Mover.' 'Quiet.' 'Saved.' 'Learner.' 'Sensitive.' 'Encourager.' 'Encourager.' 'Encourager.' 'Encourager.' One of you wrote, "Before children, my word was [...]
Good morning... 'Artist'. Sitting at a red light, I read 'Artist' on the the license plate in front of me. First, I admire this person's ability to own his or her creative identity so concisely, so boldly, so publicly. Second, I think, "If I had one word to put on my own license plate, what might it be?" I [...]
Good morning... I wake with a weird sentence saturating my brain. "Our tub is the epicenter of our healing." I told you. Weird. I am compelled to follow this 'epicenter' inkling. I discover, in greek, the root word means 'on the center.' The true center of movement, from which shock waves radiate. The command post or control center. The [...]
Good morning... A friend shared with me Richard Rohr's daily devotional from 12.1.16. How beautifully these threads of wisdom weave into God's tapestry blanketing us. Rohr writes: "At the more mature stages of life...the painful and the formerly excluded parts gradually belong to a slowly growing and unified field. This shows itself as a foundational compassion, especially toward all [...]
Good morning... When I meet a new word, I am exceedingly grateful for Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia. Yesterday I was introduced for the first time to the noun "liminality." Wikipedia teaches me, "In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning 'a threshold') is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, [...]
