Good morning... Sometimes we live too up-close to people. We hang on the bumper of our loved ones, directing. We hang on the bumper of our enemies, raging. Enmeshed, we try to fix, save, change each other. Tailgating, we engender co-dependency, locked in an intensely emotional form of loving and hating. Given a slight break in life's bumper to [...]
Good morning... "I’ve been a nervous wreck!" she said in her email. "I’ve been praying for peace, and your weekend devotionals have really helped and reaffirmed what I already know - God is with us, He’s for us, and He has a plan. I have to trust completely in Him. And let go of worry and fear. I opened [...]
Good morning... I love meeting new people in my weekly classes each semester. One special woman I met last fall sent me a beautiful blessing to begin this new year. "May you be delightfully cracked open in 2017 ;-) When you start to crack open, don't waste a moment gathering your old self up into something like you knew [...]
Good morning... This time of year I absolutely love. In our Women's Ministry at Northside Church, it is our time of waiting for new rosters to form. Throughout the fall, we prayerfully consider relevant studies to offer our community. Poignant topics. Spirit-led teachers. Morning, afternoon, and evening time slots to meet a plethora of needs. We create a class [...]
Good morning... A funky movie clip plays with my brain as I consider walking away from 2016. I feel like Navin (Steve Martin) walking away from Marie (Bernadette Peters) in the 1979 movie "The Jerk." "Well I'm gonna to go then! And I don't need any of this," says Navin. "I don't need this stuff, and I don't need [...]
Good morning... Clinging to our heart's desire can keep us from God's abundant life. When Paula D'Arcy lost her husband and her young daughter to the carelessness of a drunk driver, she was three months pregnant. In deep despair she was forced to give birth six months later. The one thing her heart desired most was a natural childbirth, [...]
Good morning... God reminds me once again. The word 'cling' in Old English is 'clingan' and 'clingan' means to shrink. Those smaller gods to which we cling shrink very important parts of us. Very important parts of us atrophy when we cling to anything but God. “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from...the place of your [...]
Good morning... "Surely the Chinese curse is upon us: 'May you live in interesting times!'" writes Margaret Silf, author of The Other Side of Chaos, one of the books we are studying in my living room this semester. "And the ideogram for crisis also comes to mind, with its combination of the symbols representing 'danger' and 'opportunity' - a [...]
Good morning... As Hillary Clinton stood in purple at the podium giving her concession speech to our nation, she referenced a familiar Bible verse: Let us not become weary in doing good. Later scouring Scripture, I found my way to the reference and to it's biblical context. Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a [...]
Good morning... I prayed in bed for a long, long time before getting up to make coffee. I fell asleep last night to the din of election results, rolling in, rolling in, neck and neck. Strangely, right now I am savoring not knowing who won, sort of like when I was pregnant and did not know the answer, "Boy [...]
