Opening an old journal I read, “I really wanted to go to the meetings this morning, but here I am in our apartment being a mother. Mothering doesn’t stop. Children’s needs don’t stop. Sick kids can’t be delegated. So once again I’m isolated and he, my husband, is not.” My words sprawled over the pages, […]
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My limbs leaden this morning my head pounding my thinking dull from interrupted sleep. Jesus did you ever feel this way? You were fully human You too experienced interrupted sleep. In my kitchen coffee helps but can’t dispel the sluggishness. Multiplied needs of others assail me; my calendar’s commitments…must be kept but seem too much… […]
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I have a book all about snow. More like a photo album, each page shows a highly magnified and perfectly lighted snowflake. Also, like a scientific journal, the book classifies snowflakes into categories; needle, column, plate and rime. Though there are eight broad classifications and at least 80 variants, what unites all snowflakes is they […]
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F I N A L L Y. I slide into the embrace of sheets Sigh, Exhale deeply. Eyelids close. Day is done. Almost asleep consciousness floating dreams alighting. Breathing. Deeply. A cry. Suddenly alert eyes wide. Thoughts flitting I know she ate enough. Will she go back to sleep? Will I? […]
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I’m hopeful you will be encouraged by the wisdom in today’s guest post by our friend, Tim Muehlhoff. Dennis and I have known Tim and Noreen for decades. Tim is witty and one of our best communicators on the Weekend to Remember speaker team. He is a professor at Biola University and specializes in teaching […]
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Lord God, Worker of all that is good, It is easy for me to boldly believe Your good and sovereign control over all as I look at the lives of others from afar. In my friend’s life, when she is struggling, suffering, wondering what You are doing in her world, I can so […]
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Twelve years ago Dennis and I took a long and much needed vacation to Alaska. Every day we boarded a small plane with our new friends, Paul and Donna Claus, and took off for places unknown in this wild untamed vast frontier. The Baker ice field was our destination one day; a place beyond comprehension. […]
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As I shared last week, I began writing a series of prayers in the winter of 2018 as I was processing some loss and experiencing a physical challenge. In the middle of that season I spoke at my daughter Ashley’s church’s women’s retreat to a group of wonderful women from college girls to grandmas. […]
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It is with a sense of great relief that I closed the last page of my 2018 planner and look ahead to clean pages filled with hope and expectancy. To be sure God gave me many many wonderful days, events, and moments in the last twelve months. Using a single summarizing adjective, casting the whole […]
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The most meaningful gifts reveal profound knowledge: the giver knows the recipient well. To be known; deeply, lavishly and individually, and then to be loved anyway, in spite of our flaws and weaknesses is the collective longing of humankind. God knew that about us … and so, on the first Christmas morning, God gave us […]
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