Good morning... A loyal "sue2you" subscriber wrote me a personal response to a recent message. "Your post was very comforting," was the gist of her encouragement. Then she added the following P.S. "I had meant to write you on a previous post a couple of days ago about the trees. LOVED your analogy...always so vivid to strengthen my remembering! There was one line that I stopped and pondered, and still think about. It was [...]

Good morning... In generations past, we simply do not know. We were unaware of violence in Colorado Springs, unaffected by grieving in Paris, and untouched by senseless attacks inside movie theaters and sacred schools, aboard vulnerable airplanes and on faraway street corners. Now, we know of brutal tragedy almost instantly and we watch the images repeated obsessively before our TV viewing eyes. In 1955, eight years before I was born, Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote: [...]

Good morning... There is always a morning after. After the holiday and after the surgery. After the wedding and after the funeral. After the victory and after the tragedy. Time does not stop moving us along and life is not lived forever in the deepest valley or on the mountain's tippy-top. At peak moments, our human nature yearns to capture the charisma, to hold on to the high. I think of the transfiguration recorded [...]

Good morning.... On this Thanksgiving morn, I am grateful our Creator offers us freedom of choice. The Spirit of God embedded in our heart empowers us to choose love in the face of evil. The husband on the following video lost his beautiful wife, the mother of their seventeen month old son, to the gun of a terrorist. I do not know the specifics of this man's theology, but I admire the faith he [...]

Good morning... When I think of Thanksgiving, I think family and friends, football and napping, food preparation and kitchen clean up. I also think Mary and Martha. We pick up the story of these two sisters in Luke 10:38-42 (NIV): ...Martha opened her home to (Jesus). She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to [...]

Good morning... She handed me a "thank you" gift before leaving my living room at the end of the semester. A perfectly shaped bow held the stationery box together. I removed the bow to discover the profound wisdom of C.S. Lewis on each individual card. "We have nothing, if not belief." "Joy is the serious business of heaven." "I gave in and admitted that God was God." "It is wonderful what you can do [...]

Good morning… I am grateful that my small group of college friends are gifted at keeping in touch, even after thirty years. We are spread throughout the country. Ohio and Pennsylvania. Indiana and Illinois. Maryland and Georgia. Arizona and Virginia. Recently, I reached out to one college friend I had not talked with for a while. Living in Ohio, not far from my hometown, she owns a gorgeous horse farm on the homestead where [...]

Good morning... I love my horse farm. Actually, I believe mine might be the best kind of horse farm around. First, I do not own it, so I do not have to pay the bills. Second, I am not the caretaker, so I do not have to feed the gorgeous animals, maintain the pristine fields, or attend to any problems guaranteed to arise. Third, the owner and caretaker is extremely generous, allowing grateful locals [...]

Good morning... Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation from 11.18.15 deepens my understanding of how we are to live as Christians during these troubled, tumultuous times. Nouwen wisely explains, "Ministry is acting in the Name of Jesus. When all our actions are in the Name, they will bear fruit for eternal life. To act in the Name of Jesus, however, doesn't mean to act as a representative of Jesus or his spokesperson. It means to act [...]

Good morning... The video I posted yesterday of two Asian children performing a moving rendition of "You Raise Me Up" means profoundly more to me now than it would have before. You may or may not know, but this school year our family is hosting a fifteen year old Chinese student. With our oldest two kids away at college, in August, Kiki settled into an upstairs bedroom beside the rooms of our sixteen year [...]

Good morning… A "sue2you" subscriber shared this video of two innocent voices singing God's power. In the midst of our internal, relational, and international struggles, touch on this link and be raised up. http://www.wimp.com/you-raise-me-up-talent-show/ But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth, Exodus 9:16 (NIV), Sue

Good morning... “I am the Lord, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me?" Jeremiah 32:27 (NLT). The LORD asks a good question. Do we believe anything is too hard for God? Derailing the evil schemes of terrorists. Is that too hard for God? Freeing people from disease and addiction. Is that too hard for the LORD? Giving guidance to the lost and comfort to the grieving. [...]