More Tragic News
Good morning... "Hi Sue," a friend wrote. "I thought you would like to see what some loving friends placed in the Johnson's front yard yesterday. People are adding to it as they feel led to show their love for Kaitlyn and her family, share in their grief and hold on to the hope and promise of the Lord's firm foundation that she so beautifully sang about a few weeks ago." As shared in [...]
Grieving Kaitlyn Together
Good morning... "Kaitlyn passed away," read yesterday's early morning text from our 26-year-old daughter. Since Kaitlyn's car accident on New Year's Eve, we have all been praying diligently for her healing. She was put into a medically induced coma to relieve the pressure on her brain. It seems that, as the doctors tried to wean her off the medicine and warm up her body incrementally, her organs were not strong enough and her [...]
Cheap Acts Of Love
Good morning... 89 cents. 89 cents. 89 cents. Plus my 25% Tuesday discount at Goodwill, since I am happily over fifty-five. I spent a whopping $2.00 on a threesome of aromatherapy candles, each with a uniquely delicious scent. One for the morning. One for the daytime. One for the nite nite. I did not know what would happen with my tiny investment. Within twenty-four hours the Spirit went to work, popping love through [...]
Free Medicine Heals
Good morning... In our weekly therapeutic community group at PAWkids, we gather with men and women from different backgrounds, with different skin colors, different ages, different life stages. What do we all have in common? We all face various challenges in our daily lives. We all need God's healing power. We are all constantly learning what it means to live healthy, abundant lives. Last week we talked about forms of natural "medicine" that [...]
Healing Homelessness And Addiction
Good morning... In October, many of us contributed items to fill fifteen welcome bags for the Ignatian Spirituality Project (ISP) retreat for women recovering from homelessness and addiction. God's blessing shone all over our collective generosity. What a wild fishes and loaves experience! This morning, sixteen women from two nearby residential rehab programs will be picked up at the MARTA station and driven to Ignatius House Retreat Center for another ISP retreat. Again [...]
Every One Must Decide
Good morning... On this day of remembrance, I reflect upon my favorite quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Everyone must decide to walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness." Everyone. Every one of us must decide. Light or darkness? Creative or destructive? Altruism or selfishness? Creative altruism is the act of selflessly helping others without expecting anything in return. It’s about prioritizing the needs of others, even if [...]
When Tornados Rip Through
Good morning... Traveling to a weekend gathering with our small group from church, we drove down to south Georgia the day after treacherous storms. I snapped a crappy photo out the window as the traffic inched through a section of road where trees on both sides of the road were mangled, ripped up, stripped bare, toppled. A large team of people were still clearing the road of debris. Had a tornado wreaked this [...]
Somehow Light Find Us
Good morning... Light is sweet; how pleasant to see a new day dawning. When people live to be very old, let them rejoice in every day of life. But let them also remember there will be many dark days (Ecclesiastes 11:7-8a, NLT). In this season of Epiphany, when the light of Christ fans out to reach us in unpredictable ways, a friend sent me a touching poem to guide our bare feet. ****** [...]
I Have Been Insensitive
Good morning... "In a handful of relationships I have been insensitive," I explain to my friend. "I have dropped the ball. I have trampled over feelings. I sense my flaws so significantly right now. But the light of the sun still rises on me, and God's radiance breaks through anyway." "It's like the clouds on our last night at the beach," I recall. "They made the sunset shine with a different kind of [...]
I’m Not Who I Want To Be
Good morning... Her poem, delivered to my inbox in the middle of this ordinary night, says just what I am thinking. ****** Ambition by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer I am so far from the woman I want to be, so far from humility and simplicity. I dream of clearing not only the shelves, not only the closets, but also the cluttered inner rooms that crowd out the divine. Every day I search for ways [...]
I Want That
Good morning... I happened upon a book and felt drawn to a handful of words. ****** Excerpt from Poems from the Thin Places by Monica R. Lavia "My peace I give you," said Jesus. I want that. Not the kind of peace that is the opposite of war, but the kind of peace that is the opposite of fear. The kind of peace that would allow me to let go of things like [...]
Her Grieving Heart
Good morning... "It was often very tender and sometimes sore over the holidays," she texted about her grieving heart. "Longing. Causing plenty of tears of remembering and of grief over not enough life shared. All the family went away together and had a loving and kind respite. It was honest and a loving time. We let each other be however we were in the moment. A time of new healing. Tears. Laughter. Fun. [...]