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 [...]

Good morning... I am often asked to speak for churches, for women's groups, for private Bible studies nestled in a home. I actually love the privilege of gathering with people I have never met and talking about the movement of God in our lives. The women who come to my living room for class weekly know that the LORD has developed in me an intuitive style of teaching flowing deep from my core, interactive [...]

Good morning... My friend who is battling brain cancer has invited us to join her on her journey through her Caringbridge site. She ends each post with things she wants to remember. Like any truth, that which is deep is also most wide. Yesterday's wisdom reached deep to extend wide, embracing all of us. "Things I want to remember: BRAIN SURGERY IS PAINFUL: makes me feel like I would rather die right after, but [...]

Good morning... I love peering over life's fence to a stage where our family's feet have yet to touch ground. Our kids are now 20, 18, 16, and 14. On Tuesday night, I had the privilege of facilitating a small group of young women in their mid to late twenties. Two dear friends of mine mentor this group weekly and they asked me to speak to their young women on the topic of prayer. [...]

Good morning... In response to my post "A slap in the face," she wrote: "I had to laugh out loud today. Many years ago, when my daughters were still young, I sang in an adult choir in a small SC United Methodist church. One night at practice, the director was giving us dates for a special performance. A very talented bass with a sense of humor said he couldn't make it since he had [...]

Good morning... Some scriptures feel like a slap in the face. To me, the verses in Luke 9:57-62 (CEV) are shocking, confusing, disturbing. Along the way someone said to Jesus, “I’ll go anywhere with you!” Jesus said, “Foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man doesn’t have a place to call his own.” Jesus told someone else to come with him. But the man said, “Lord, let me wait until [...]

Good morning... I had the privilege of facilitating our daily devotional time during our Women's Mission Trip to Appalachia. Nestled in my temporary bed, the LORD would stir me from sleep at the exact right time. I would quietly crawl out of my bunk, trying not to wake my roommates, then make a pot of coffee before sneaking out onto the screened in back porch. The pitch black, crisp air whispered a silent, "Good [...]

Good morning... She sent me a beautiful handwritten letter expressing gratitude for our friendship. "We will forever be connected," was her parting line. On the bottom of the stationery lives this gorgeous quote by Rachel Naomi Remen: "Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company." With each class I teach, each meal I share, each walk and talk sprinkled throughout my [...]

Good morning... Four-letter-words get a bad wrap. A few bad boys give the clan a bad name. If I had to choose four four-letter-words to live by, these would mine, in this exact order. Wait. Rest. Hear. Obey. Do not rush in to control. Stay still, trusting God to move. Listen, really listen, to nature, to inklings, to the Word of the LORD. When clarity comes, act upon divine wisdom. Since before time began [...]

Good morning... Less than six hours away from Atlanta, GA, I wake in the coal mining territory of Chavies, Kentucky. Surrounded by the grandeur of the Appalachian mountains, many hillsides are laid bare in past hopes of immediate profit. When people rape the land everything changes. The lives of these people are bonded to mine. This is the fifth fall I have returned here to serve with a team of women. When we exit [...]