Good morning... "I guess I view Lent as a season of shaking," I said as I stepped to the microphone to end our Women's Lenten Communion Service. I explained that one of my favorite Christmas traditions is cutting down a fresh Virginia pine from a nearby tree farm. We go together as a family, circling around and around to [...]
Good morning... "Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in," says Hebrews 12:2 in the Message translation. "Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, [...]
Good morning... When I was a kid, we played in our neighborhood from after school until the dinner bell rang. One of my favorite childhood games was Red Rover. When we played Red Rover, we would pick two teams from our collection of buddies, we would stretch out in two lines, hand-in-hand, facing one another from about twenty feet [...]
Good morning... "For the joy set before him (Jesus) endured the cross," explains Hebrews 12:2b (NIV). This is a good thing to remember as we walk into Lent. We all have different crosses to bear. The cross of grieving a loved one who has left this earth. The cross of a scary diagnosis and its various treatment options. The [...]
Good morning... As we got together for lunch and caught up on each others' lives, one friend said, "Sue, you look really tired." Part of me felt a bit offended, "Do I really look that bad?" Then the rest of me began to unload. I told my friends I am exhausted from pushing to finish another graduate school paper, [...]
Good morning... I have a good friend who explores the meaning of "spirit animals," so when my weird dream included a pampered guinea pig in a king-sized bed, I thought to myself, "What do guinea pigs symbolize?" Sure enough, there are several websites on such topics, so I asked God, "What do You want to teach me through this [...]
Good morning... A small portion of my dream focused on a beige colored guinea pig surrounded by cozy pillows. Near the padded headboard of a spacious king sized bed, this cute, cuddly creature was comfortably resting. At peace, totally dependent on her Caregiver, this unique being was lavished with everlasting love. Rest. Depend. Receive lavish love. A guinea pig's [...]
Good morning... Time is a gift. Do we know this truth deeply, in the pit of our soul? Some events in life become wisdom's unexpected teachers. Like surviving an accident or slowly healing after tragedy. Like expecting a newborn or being bedside with a dying loved one. Like last year's cancer diagnosis stunning our friend Lara and the wisdom [...]
Good morning... Recently I was re-introduced to a prayer I love. Patient Trust Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it [...]
Good morning... As we walked around the horse farm at an early morning hour, my friend said the same sentence that had woken me from sleep. "You forgot two holes." She and the Holy Spirit were exactly right, in my post yesterday, "Five holes in our head," I forgot to mention that we each have two nostrils. Revealing a [...]
