Good morning... Look at that smile! When my father texted this photo of my mom back home at their senior living community, her pure joy made me smile. What a contrast from the image seared on my mind from eleven days before. My mom was hooked up to a ventilator, heavily sedated, laying unresponsive in the ICU. Now, [...]
Good morning... It was hard to leave Ohio with my mother in the ICU. I had a meaningful visit with my parents and siblings, but I was deeply concerned about my mom's condition. On my final morning with her, the nurse asked her where she was and my mom replied, "I am at the Renaissance (the retirement community [...]
Good morning... On Monday morning, my dad and I were with my mom in the ICU when her regular doctor stopped in. He had seen my mom soon after she was admitted, when she was hooked up to all the machinery keeping her alive. Very, very sick with an unidentified infection, she was unresponsive and highly sedated. That [...]
Good morning... Wrapped beneath a cozy blanket, I nestle alone on the outdoor couch below our back porch. With my ear to my phone, I savor the four familiar voices on our monthly call. After the silence of our opening prayer, one friend reads aloud a poem. What a quietly transformational place to begin. ****** Hide and Seek [...]
Good morning... During our Friday morning class, we wondered together how we ordinary people might actually hear the guiding voice of God. Enlivening our discussion, one of our classmates told us a true story. Lake Blue Ridge is a thin place for this friend, a sacred spot where heaven and earth seem seamlessly bound. On one of her [...]
Good morning... After texted about My Rough Re-entry, my friend responded with life-giving words. "You are carrying the load," she noticed, "yoking with so many." "This morning I read a Kate Bowler devotional (my Lenten practice) from _Good Enough_," my friend explained. "She wrote about this idea: Sometimes there are two selves - a 2:00 am self (the [...]
Good morning... Yesterday we went to the little town of Bethlehem, a town that is not so little anymore. We visited the multifaceted Church of the Nativity, which was built on top of the cave where Jesus was said to have been born, swaddled in cloth, and placed in a stone manger, a feeding trough for the animals. [...]
Good morning... I apologize about the challenges we are experiencing with our blog posts this week. The time change is something I am still trying to negotiate. I think I have figured out a solution, so hopefully we will move more smoothly into our morning messages from here on out. If you missed some of our earlier posts [...]
Good morning... After being dropped off at the airport around 4:00 pm in Atlanta, we arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel just as the sun was setting. With the seven hour time change, our travel evaporated an entire day. My husband Steve shared with me the sketchy notes from which he will teach each day, and I will put [...]
Good morning... Does this ever happen to you? At the 11th hour, I always want to stay home. As my fears swirl wildly in the final hours, I crave my familiar comfort zone. I just want to hunker down in my own happy place. I have been waiting to go to on an adult trip to Israel with [...]
