Good morning... "I remember feeling pregnant with twins," she wrote me after yesterday's post, I Feel Pregnant With Quadruplets. "My husband would ask how I felt each day and my answer was always, "Heavy, I feel heavy." Not "I feel fat," but "I feel heavy." Heavy from the physical load on my body and heavy from the emotional load [...]
Good morning... Last week, I held my head like a 9-month-pregnant belly. My spiritual director said, "I have never seen you do that before, holding you head with both hands like you are trying to keep it from exploding." It's true. I felt like my brain could burst at any time with all the doubling daily details. This spring, [...]
Good morning... This morning, I feel drawn to make two lists in my journal. Left column: World's Way. Right column: God's Way. Then I brain dump words into each category. World's Way: Comply. Compete. Control. Act nice. Avoid pain. Look good. Perform. Perfect. Please people. Make money. Accumulate stuff. Be the best. God's Way: Trust God. Surrender all. Die to selfish desires. [...]
Good morning... In the midst of his suffering on the cross, Jesus dropped his words into the pool of prayer. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last, (Luke 23:46, NIV). In other translations, Jesus' words read, "Father, I entrust my spirit into [...]
Good morning... "We are like plants full of tropisms..." writes Parker Palmer on page 6 of Let Your Life Speak. My mind wonders, "What does tropism mean?" So I google the word and learn some fun facts. The noun tropism grows from the root word "to turn." Tropisms are the turning or bending movements of a living organism toward [...]
Good morning... I love to notice God's new gifts expanding in the heart of ordinary people. So I adore this email from my friend. ****** Dear Sue, I have been ruminating on your recent post, Infused With Peace. Since 2003, I have been scared of the word "infusion." To me it was something that hurt, that was scary, that might not [...]
Good morning... From Jacksonville, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia, one subscriber sent an interesting quote to comfort our community: "I remember reading this quote in Tullian Tchvidjian’s (Billy Graham’s grandson) book Glorious Ruin - 'The good news of suffering is that it brings us to the end of ourselves...brings us to the place of honesty, which is the place of desperation, which [...]
Good morning... To help the family gather pictures for her funeral reception, I went to my friend's condo last week. My heart was overjoyed to see an antique painting of fruit hanging on her bedroom wall. This handprinted original was a gift she had opened from me, by-chance, at our recent “Symbols of the Soul Gift Exchange," a final exchange [...]
Good morning... I wake on the morning of an important funeral, a funeral I am not able to attend. Funny, but it feels somehow fitting for our funky friendship to experience no formal goodbye. Formal is not her way and neither is it mine. We were strangers when she came to my living room for our weekly class. Shuffling [...]
Good morning... Yesterday's post, Living A Secret, ended with an empowering statement: I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace (Philippians 4:13, AMP). Infuse. I do not meet that word very often, yet just now I open my book to read today's Bible study homework and here are the paragraphs [...]
