The Joy In Grief
Good morning... I love walking with my friend who is a retired middle school english teacher. One never knows what fresh wisdom will bubble up between us. Here is a prime example. Discussing what she is learning from her study of the book of Ecclesiastes, she said, "I am trying to make peace with the effervescence of life." When is the last time you heard someone use the word effervescence casually in a [...]
I Am Loved
Good morning... "I am loved, I am loved by You," this chorus rises up repeatedly within me. Now it's your turn to check out the music video below, which depicts for me the kingdom of heaven on earth. If all of these unique people, the men and the women, the black and the white, the young and the old, the large and the small, are saturated by the love of God just as [...]
Things Fall Off
Good morning... Led by the Spirit, an altar is being created in our foyer with all of the tiny treasures I find on my walks. Things fall off. It's nature's way. Things fall off. Colorful feathers, black acorns, buckeye nuts, chipped off hearts made of bark or stone. When I walked and talked with a friend recently, we found a few cool feathers and what she called a "Grateful Dead" leaf. [...]
Where Will We Land?
Good morning... "Double sunrise in Japan." My mind woke in a haze with this strange phrase, then I drifted back into my second segment of sleep. Waking for the day, I remembered those four words, "Double sunrise in Japan." Somehow it seemed centered on a celebration of sorts? So my curiosity did what it so often does, I googled "Double sunrise in Japan" to see what popped up. I learned from Wikipedia that [...]
Hope Remains
Good morning... My husband and I watched a couple taking engagement photos on the beach. The rising sun peaked out of the clouds. The waves ebbed and flowed in sync. The perfect dreams of these young strangers were played themselves out before our eyes. Thinking back to the day before, Steve had performed a wedding for another beautiful couple, guiding them through the ominous promise, "...for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, [...]
Radiate Hope
Good morning... As I walked to the beach hoping for a photo shoot with the rising sun, I thought, "It's so dark and there are so many thick clouds, I am not sure I will be able to see the sun rise on this day." As the first sliver of the sun peaked through the horizon, a pondering prayer piqued in me. "God, if Your light can break through the darkness [...]
We Wake In Oneness
Good morning... Waking this morning at 3:24 am, I google "When is sunrise in Palm Beach, Florida?" The answer is "6:40 am." For three delightful hours, I will enjoy silence and solitude with God on this Sabbath morn before I walk out to the sand and do a photo shoot on my phone with the rising sun. Why do I tell you this? This is a wedding weekend, the second ceremony performed by [...]
Our Clouds Of Division
Good morning... According to dictionary.com, the verb "disperse" has three common meanings. 1. to drive or send off in various directions; scatter: to disperse a crowd. 2. to spread widely; disseminate: to disperse knowledge. 3. to dispel; cause to vanish: The wind dispersed the fog. I witnessed the dynamics of dispersion out the plane window. Lots of things disperse. Clouds. Crowds. Seeds. Grief. Anger. [...]
If Spiders Center In
Good morning... After a stormy night a few weeks back, I went into our back yard to survey the debris, the fallen limbs, the messy leaves. What caught my attention was a huge spider web delicately hanging mid-air. I walked over to observe more closely the spider constructing her web. Active. Intricate. Diligently working. The small creature would silently venture out toward the periphery to knit together more layers of connecting [...]
Yesterday’s Tattoo
Good morning... On Veteran's Day each year, I enjoy browsing through videos created to honor the men and women who have served in our United States Armed Forces. Now I share with you my favorite tribute of this year, a piercing rendition of "Taps." "Taps" is a bugle call played at 2100 hours, during flag ceremonies, and at military funerals. The official military version is played by a single bugle or trumpet. There's [...]
Love Is Louder
Good morning... "Your picture with the Lauren Daigle video made me think of this," she wrote. "I keep this on my mirror. We are definitely on the same wavelength." I’m thanking you, God, out loud in the streets, singing your praises in town and country. The deeper your love, the higher it goes; every cloud is a flag to your faithfulness (Psalm 57:9-10, MSG). Now we are led to another Lauren [...]
The Gentle Answer
Good morning... "Good morning Sue," she wrote last week. "I want to highly recommend this book by Scott Sauls, The Gentle Answer. He writes: 'Jesus and Christianity do not discriminate between good people and bad people. Instead, Jesus and Christianity discriminate between humble people and proud people. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).” Then she sent me the page below to share more deeply God's enduring truth: [...]