Good morning... She wrote: "Sue, with Paris on my heart, I was reading Psalm 64 today. See if God leads you to write a devotional concerning the Paris massacre & the hope of Psalm 64. I especially love the Amplified version of this scripture." So, I prayerfully ponder her request and am drawn back to God's gift of the Holy Spirit ...the one who is in you is greater than the one who is [...]

Good morning... The bare branches of the almost-winter trees look painful to the eye. Vulnerable. Unprotected. Emptied to the core. The stick figure limbs cry out, "Life has stripped me naked." Even Jesus related to the winter trees as he hung in the dark upon the cross. From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, [...]

Good morning... Last week, I called a "mimosa morning" for my Friday Bible study class. Hosting small groups in my living room each day, I reserve the right to call a "mimosa morning" whenever the Spirit moves me. The Spirit moved me last Friday because significant highs and lows aligned. First, we sold our old home last week after straddling two mortgages for fourteen months. Yippee. Second, our beloved Friday morning Bible study friend [...]

Good morning... "There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing," says the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. To me, it seemed like a good time to refrain. While we were reconnecting one evening after a weekend apart, my husband went to the kitchen to get some water. What greeted him was a mammoth hot mess. Quickly he called for me. I watched, dumbfounded, as a fountain of water sprayed wildly [...]

Good morning... Yesterday, Northside United Methodist Church, where we worship weekly as a family and where I work as Women's Ministry Director, celebrated its 65th anniversary. One story told from the pulpit was how the founding pastor caught God's vision that this be a church Jesus would want to join. In 2003, we moved to the Buckhead area and we were church shopping for our family of six. We visited many welcoming churches in [...]

Good morning... One of the many men in our "sue2you" community sent me this email and video link with incredible images set to meaningful music. Prepare to be "taken to church" on this sacred Sunday morn. "Sue, this is one of the most beautiful and meaningful streaming videos ever created. Be sure your speakers are on. It will take you to places you will never be, or see, personally while here on God's created [...]

Good morning... Astute observers of my blog may have asked the same question I did: "Why did the random 'December 31, 1969' pop up below yesterday's post?" Having crafted a different message before I went to sleep, I deleted and switched my original post in the middle of the night. I could delete the old words and paste in the new ones, but when it came to deleting the date, a strange thing happened. [...]

Good morning... I was rushing out of Kroger when I looked up to see a toddler strapped into her grocery cart, staring right at me. When our eyes met, a smile spread from her wide-eyed lips to engulf her whole entire body. "You give a smile to everyone! Don't you?" I beamed back. "Everyone gets a smile." Though this little person had not read her Bible, she was living the words of Jesus: "These [...]

Good morning... If not for the overdose, he would have turned 30 years old today. During his time of remembrance, the father of the deceased young man shared beautiful words of love and encouragement. I will always remember two of his most touching insights. First, this grieving dad said something like this: "One month ago, my daughter married the love of her life and I was extremely proud to give the father of the [...]

Good morning... I write at our Cochise Drive home one final time. Bitter-sweet. This closing day is bitter-sweet. ​ Bitter is having our home on the market for 14 months. Bitter is this being the last roof our four kids have ever slept under regularly. Bitter is never again jumping on the trampoline as a family in this awesome back yard, never hosting another Bible study group in this welcoming living room, and never [...]

Good morning... Richard Rohr says things I know deeply, but I can not eloquently put into words. For example, he writes: “Jesus did not call us to the poor and to the pain only to be helpful; he called us to be in solidarity with the real and for own transformation. It is often only after the fact we realize that they helped us in ways we never knew we needed. This is sometimes [...]

Good morning... Three hours after I facilitated a lively Sunday school discussion on the unavoidable opposites littering our lives, polar opposites laid out in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, I attended a time of remembrance for a young man who lost his long battle with addiction. His obituary explained he had overdosed from "a heart too heavy for this world." This Thursday, he would have celebrated his 30th birthday. Fighting back tears, the mother and the stepmother [...]