Welcome To Our Messy Home
Good morning... Leaning against our foyer table was our seventeen-year-old son's lacrosse gear, used hard in the state tournament game, and his guitar amp was sitting nearby, left over from their rock band's recent graduation gig. Laid out in our living room were backpacks and bedrolls unchosen by my son and my husband for their week long hiking/camping trip with Lovett's rising senior class. Piles of laundry, some folded, some not, were strew [...]
Savor Sabbath: Be Carried
Good morning... This Sabbath morning, rest at peace with our loving LORD. Like the invisible, unpredictable wind carrying us along, savor the embrace of this life-giving song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_s4U5AAdw Let God whisper into your open, inner ear, "My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating [...]
I Set My Sail
Good morning... On the morn of this mid-May weekend, the unsettling winds of change swirl within and around. Some of us will race to graduation festivities, end-of-the-school-year activities, or the final game of a hard-fought state tournament. Some of us will face health crises, hospitalization, or the final hours with a heaven-bound loved one. Some of us will make space for prayerful pondering, crucial conversations, or memory making moments. As we each race, face, [...]
Our Pathway Forward
Good morning... "Thank you, Sue!" she wrote after yesterday's post, We Find Balance. "I needed this today and every day! Awesome reminder." I felt compelled to write back: "Balancing on God's breeze is our pathway forward!" "Just wrote that sentence down as my reminder," smiled her return email. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool [afternoon breeze] of the day, so the man and [...]
We Find Balance
Good morning... We live in the now and are moving into the future. How do we find balance in this precarious position, being here while going there? In yesterday's post, Amid The Mayhem Of May, we learned one important truth: we humans are not equipped to know, to see, or to understand the intricate work of God, the Maker of all things. We are designed purposefully to live in the dark unknown ...for we walk [...]
Amid The Mayhem Of May
Good morning... Every year the month of May swirls out of our control, ripping up our school year routines, not yet sprouting the seeds of summer. Weddings. Graduations. Goodbyes and hellos. May holds crowded space for the death to what was, the "What next?" of right now, and the unpredictable nature of a brand new birth. Inviting a fresh season, May embodies the mayhem of change. New jobs, homes, adventures. New puppies, spouses, [...]
My Temper Tantrum
Good morning... Plan A seemed awesome. I was excited, grateful, anticipating wonderful. When Plan A gave way to Plan B, I was mildly disappointed but adapted pretty quickly. As Plan B crumbled into Plan C, the wind of joy left my sails, and I pep-talked myself into a new possibility. I lost it when Plan C unraveled into Plan D. I was mad. I was frustrated. Stretched beyond my comfort and feeling taken [...]
Mother’s Day Meltdowns
Good morning... I woke up yesterday to a text from one of you: Right away I responded, with the fresh memory of our UGLY "crazy" popping out on Easter morning: "Thanks! You too. Hoping for less of a Mother's Day meltdown. How about you? Ours has begun well, but it's only 10:00 am. Enjoy your imperfectly rainy day." Thinking further back, I remember previous Mother's Day meltdowns. The year I stayed home from [...]
Savor Sabbath: Notice. Thank. Share.
Happy Mother's Day morn... "Sue, good morning," she wrote yesterday, "I must tell you how tenderly God cared for all the details in my mom’s life as she gracefully aged. I retired from work to take of our elderly parents three years before my mom died. I was working for several medical practices at Northside and had a card to get into the parking deck for free. I never was sure which of my [...]
One California Cat
Good morning... One late afternoon several years ago, as I finished hosting class in our living room, my mind wandered weirdly to a friend in California. My close high school friend had moved from our suburb of Cleveland, Ohio to a suburb of Los Angeles to pursue his acting passion, he had not married or had kids, and he had built a life he loved alongside his adventuresome cat, Midnight. Strangely, he stayed [...]
Love Flows
Good morning... After re-working yesterday's post, I touch on the Henri Nouwen online devotional, and God's Spirit flows me further down the exact same wavelength. It is as if Nouwen is continuing the final sentence of our morning message, a sentence which reads: "If we prayerfully listen well to the inklings of God’s Spirit stirring in our soul, we ordinary people are empowered to become the love, the voice, the presence of God [...]
One Memorable Phone Call
Good morning... "Sue, how do we make sense of the senseless?" she emailed after yesterday's post, How Can Students Shoot Students? "We thank you for trying." "Yesterday, I felt compelled to call my sister, who lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado," her email continued. "As we are were catching up on unimportant details of each others lives, one by one I could hear ambulances and police cars screaming in the background of our conversation. [...]