Joy Flows From A Broken Heart
Good morning... I love this image from Kate Bowler's devotional for the week. The picture gently holds hands with title of her email. "Joy is the oxygen for doing hard things." This subject line is a quote from Gary Haugen who runs International Justice Mission, "a non-profit organization committed to liberating vulnerable individuals from the clutches of modern slavery and human trafficking across the globe." On the wall of their office lives the [...]
Lying Beside My Friends
Good morning... While nursing a partial tear in her ACL, our dog Tate chased after a squirrel, yelped really loud, fell to the ground, laid down for a long while, lame. That night we let Tate sleep outside for potty purposes. In solidarity, in case she needed help, I slept under a blanket on our outdoor couch beneath the emptying moon. Then waking in the dark dawning hours, I opened the email below [...]
My Mom And I Loved To Bake
Good morning... I remember sitting on the rug in a circle one morning during my kindergarten year. We quieted down from our giddy as we were each blindfolded. Then, one child at a time, our teacher tenderly held beneath our nostrils a series of everyday items. I was the only one in class who instantly knew the warm, sweet smell of vanilla. My knowing came naturally since my mom and I loved to [...]
Too Many People Need My Prayers
Good morning... As we settle into non-anxious silence, God's inner music begins to beacon. We are gently drawn toward the peace, the power, the presence of God. "Sue," she wrote after yesterday's blog post, "I always feel overwhelmed by the number of people that I love who desperately need prayer. I could sit all day and hope to get through only part of the list. Could you talk a little more about how [...]
Bring The Gift Of Silence
Good morning... She read to me the Rachel Naomi Remen quote above and down, down deep it sank. Wisdom settled like a skipping stone at the bottom of my murky sea. "Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of [...]
At Twilight In Our Messy World
Good morning... "It's late August," Barbara Brown Taylor begins her first chapter in Learning to Walk in the Dark. "I am lying in my yard on a blow-up mattress waiting for Friday to become Friday night, which is how I know people are wrong when they say, 'It's as clear as the difference between night and day.' That might be true at noon or midnight, but here in the liquid edge between day [...]
An Old Song My Dad Sings
Good morning... As the full harvest moon slowly begins to empty and September breathes its last, I experience a strange occurrence. After taking our dogs out to relieve themselves in the middle of this night, I sit down on the couch to write. A few minutes later I hear a slow and quiet "creeeeeeeeeeeek." Moving cautiously toward the sound, I see our front door wide open. My brain knows I must not have [...]
The Moon Mirrors Our Soul
Good morning... Waking in the middle of the night, I am surprised by the brilliant light resting on our couch. I snap the photo above then walk around to find more creative light streaking our floor and rug. As if on a scavenger hunt, I follow the glow onto the back porch. Voila, I discover the source. A big round moon hangs high in the dark. [...]
My Mom Said YES!!!
Good morning... My mom returned home to their independent living villa in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. For nearly a month she slept away from my dad, from hospital stay, through surgery, ICU, colostomy bag, to recovery at the skilled nursing center at their senior living community. Yesterday my mom settled into her favorite chair, grateful and content. My sister snapped these pictures of her homecoming and sent them with a text, "Granny's back home [...]
Caught Up In Life’s Whirlwind
Good morning... I feel caught up in a real life whirlwind. People I love are experiencing high highs - births, weddings, birthdays, a calm return home, a successful heart transplant, a trip to Uganda to nurture single moms and widows. Others I love are facing low lows - repeated scans and a wait for results, the complications of a colostomy bag, reoccurrences of cancer (bladder, brain, colon), the losses of Alzheimers, the natural [...]
Heal + Thrive – You Are Loved
Good morning... Up in the middle of the night, I tried to write a message about the life-altering week of my friend LaTonya Gates, founder and director of PAWkids. After hours of crafting and re-crafting, the message oddly zapped away. Twice. The words and images, touched by some human error of mine, simply evaporated. Twice. So, I gave up and I climbed back in bed, figuring God had a higher purpose for a [...]
Savor Sweetness In The Dark
Good morning... After our Friday morning discussion of Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor, I looked down and saw the strange sight above. A cut out, curled up magazine page caught randomly in the corner of our patio where the fourteen of us had just finished class. From where did this image blow in? Pictured was a fork. A piece of rocky-road brownie. A thick wave of peanut butter [...]