From Burn To Beauty
Good morning... "Oh Sue," she wrote at 8:38 pm last night, nearly twenty-four hour after our first exchange. "To God be the Glory for the words He places on your heart, captures though your pen, lays on your lips. What you have written is the TRUTH! Continue speaking it, my Sister in Christ." (She was referring to yesterday's post, a post highlighting our online dialogue about "end times" and the devastating fire ravaging [...]
Up From The Ashes Of Notre Dame
Good morning... "Hey Sue," she emailed at 8:23 pm last night. "I am being so blessed by reading your blogs. My daughter and I were talking this afternoon about the devastating destruction of Notre Dame. She asked me is this another sign of the 'end of times' read about in revelation? I would love to hear what you have to say about this relating it to Scripture. Hope all is well." I sat [...]
The Tears Of A Mother
Good morning... "I absolutely love the checkmark visual," one subscriber wrote after Saturday morning's post. "The word descent makes me think of falling completely in love and being totally dependent on God at happy times - my wedding and the birth of our children - in addition to the really difficult seasons." She's right. Painful life seasons (the death of a loved one, a difficult diagnosis, an extra marital affair, an addiction, a [...]
Savor Sabbath: Rise Alive
Happy Palm Sunday... This week we commemorate the biggest checkmark of all time. Beginning today, the Christian church around the globe follows Jesus' descent into the depth of God's love for all of us before ascending to fullness of life we never thought possible. "Jesus’s real purpose in this sacrifice was to wager his own life against his core conviction that love is stronger than death, and that the laying down of self [...]
Our Series Of Checkmarks
Good morning... Life-changing experiences shape us into our best selves, one checkmark after another. Let me tell you what I mean. We all know what a checkmark looks like, right? A descending line. Touching down to a bottom base before changing the trajectory of motion. The uptick of an ascending line growing to a higher level than ever before. (If the line returned to the same level, we would form a "V" not [...]
My Heart Feels Bittersweet
Good morning... "It's bittersweet," my heart thinks as I quietly put away the mugs, the teas, the snack bowls that have rested regularly on our foyer table, welcoming women into our home week after week. "It is bittersweet to end another winter/spring season of learning." Yes, my schedule will breathe a little more freely and, yes, I will miss these soul seekers who help to draw out the True Self from one another. [...]
Free Your Feet
Good morning... Yesterday I facilitated our final weekly class of the season. This semester has been a doozie. Our discussions have embraced real life, ups and downs, hopes and hurts, whys and why nots. Planning weddings, funerals, and impending graduations. Facing challenging family issues and life-changing divorce. Mourning the death of pets and parents, friends and family members, dashed dreams and old ways of being. Inching our way through overwhelming health issues, for [...]
How To Live This Hour
Good morning... After being moved by yesterday's quote, we asked a helper to run six copies, one for each of us to take home. On the copied page lived another set of wise words, words written by Frank Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters by a Modern Mystic. "I feel simply carried along each hour," writes Laubach, "doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in [...]
God Is Slow
Good morning... Yesterday's post took hours to develop. It took a long time before wise words from God trickled through one of you and into my inbox, wise words which then graced our morning message. Interestingly, God's teaching on time continued as I went to my first meeting of the day. There I was confronted by the quiet reading of a quote exposing our quandary. "In the spiritual life God chooses to try [...]
God Hands Me A Pillow
Good morning... I have been awake in the dark for hours now. Praying. Journaling. Pondering on a blank page, "LORD, what do You want to say through me today?" Sitting still in this question, jotting one dead-end idea after another, I have watched a multitude of minutes tick off our wall clock. "This is where so many holy people break down," Thomas Merton writes. "As soon as they reach the point where they [...]
Savor Sabbath: We Dance In Harmony
Good morning... Making space and taking time for Sabbath is our weekly ritual. As we savor this Sabbath, we cut from the fast, crowded pace of the world and we remember this life-giving truth: we are designed to live in harmony with our Creator, with our True Self, and with each person we meet, day after day. To remind us of our true self-in-Christ, what slow steps has God led us through this [...]
One Photo…One Cartoon
Good morning... Her text was short. "Needed a sign today." Then she shared one photo...one cartoon. I texted back. "Both of these are so so perfect. Your before and after is stunning, a work of art created and recreated by the God of the universe." Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into [...]