Good morning... This harsh winter has been the perfect season for us to be reading Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. On page 68, Wintering "...offers us a cyclical metaphor for life, one in which the energies of spring arrive again and again, nurtured by the deep retreat of winter. We [...]
Good morning... In our therapeutic community group at PAWkids last Tuesday, we used watercolor paints to bring this poem to life. ****** Grief Is Like A Snowflake... sometimes it comes one flake at a time; other times, it comes like a blizzard. It melts away, but it always comes back. Just as each snowflake is unique, each person [...]
Good morning... Yesterday was a magical day and night. For Christmas, I gave my sister from Ohio a trip to Atlanta to join me for Kay Warren's talk at Peachtree Road Methodist Church. After a full day of crazy flying delays, Cathy finally arrived yesterday morning just in time for us to change clothes, hop in the car, [...]
Good morning... During this winter season that feels treacherous to so many, I happened upon a new music video. Jelly Roll and Lauren Daigle have paired up to produce Faithful Through The Ages. "A raw, soul-deep anthem about a God who never walked away — even when life broke us down," writes one listener. "Jelly Roll’s gravel-hearted honesty [...]
Good morning... Before the winter storm blasted much of our country this weekend, I received the above image from Wisconsin. Inside, 60 degrees. Outside, negative 30, and that's without windchill! "What does negative 30 actually feel like?" I wondered. Then the winter weather arrived, and images came blowing in from family and friends. A shiny hard layer of [...]
Good morning... This week in class, we read aloud these words from the prologue of our book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. ****** Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in your life when you're cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from [...]
Good morning... "Part of hearing God is listening," she said, filled with Holy Spirit wisdom. Those in our monthly spiritual growth group automatically responded, "That's profound. Can you say the sentence again?" "Part of hearing God is listening," she repeated herself. I typed the six words into my phone, knowing I might share them with you. "Words can [...]
Good morning... As we came in from the sunny winter cold to celebrate a friend's 80th birthday with our Thursday morning class, I received photos from Ohio. "We have about 5" of snow and most schools are closed," my dad texted. "It's much worse in the snow belt east of Cleveland." "Snow days off school," was one thing [...]
Good morning... On Sunday at church, I noticed a left-handed first grader filling out a coloring sheet entitled "Things I like to do in winter." After the service, I asked a staff person in the Children's Ministry if I could have a copy of the coloring sheet to use with our first classes of the semester. We are [...]
Good morning... As I sit beneath the growing weight of our now 40 lb. pup, Cami, I think about Philip Yancey and his wife of 55 years. My prayers go up like incense on their behalf as they drop from the public eye to work on their daily life, a life broken by his eight year affair. In [...]
