My Second Best Christmas Gift of All Time
Of course, the best Christmas gift of all time is Christ himself. On Christmas morning, I received my second best Christmas gift of all time. We’d been to church on Christmas Eve and seen and heard all the kids dressed up as Mary, Joseph, wise men, shepherds and a bunch of shaggy, smelly sheep. We’d […]
For the Joy Set Before Us
Joy to the world! The LORD has come! Let Earth receive her King! JOY? Fact is, some are sad right now. Like the loved ones of the twelve mowed down by ISIS in the Christmas market on Monday in Germany. While we’re singing peace on Earth, some are creating chaos and spreading terror and grief. […]
When You’ve Loved and Lost and You Need Another Miracle
MaryAnn Lammers smiled through her tears as Pastor gathered our attention during after-service coffee downstairs. “Today is MaryAnn’s 63rd wedding anniversary.” Only, MaryAnn’s love went to glory last year right before Christmas. Her heart still cries for her loss—63 years of walking as one and raising a house full of kids. When heart and soul are […]
What To Do When You Feel Like A Freak
Our pastor’s kid hauled these freaks from the back garden and plopped them on the front porch. I thought they looked bad in the patch. Seeing them all together, all their deformities and discolorations on side-by-side display, kind of shocked me, honestly. How in the world did this happen? This is not what I […]
Simply Grateful
We went to our “happy place”, as our youngest son calls it, for a family vacation from Saturday until Wednesday. Door County is the “thumb” of Wisconsin and what some refer to as “the Cape Cod of the Midwest”—a peninsula that juts out separating the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan. Highway 42 meanders […]
Peace on Earth
Never thought I’d see the day. Not in my lifetime. Just heard from a friend that an organization for which she works will never “make it” in a particular community because her organization employs devoted Christians in high positions, though it’s not a Christian organization, though it serves people of all faiths and all […]
Flowering Fields
As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s […]
Growing Up
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:18 Saturday was prom day for our youngest who turned 18 three weeks ago. I close my eyes and see him in that navy blue & white striped shirt he wore the day I held him for the first […]
Wait a Minute!
I worked out hard yesterday because soon I’ll have to shimmy into my shorts. Time to shred the winter belly I swear looks like it was inflated with a tire pump. So I started the DVD. Thought I might die, right there on the family room floor. There was this trainer on the screen, her […]
Some Scenes of the Seen
She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Genesis 16:13-14 SCENE ONE: It goes like this . . . Years ago I sat on the kitchen floor in front of an […]
For When You Feel Like A Failure: Kingdom Economics 101
At 3:10 PM, he clomped up those steps to the library, not with his usual enthusiasm. He plopped down in the yellow chair, right by our second-story fireplace, right across from my light blue Lazy Boy where I sit reading, waiting for him. I sensed him. Something was wrong. ”Hi! How was your day?” “Not […]
Some Thoughts on Dying When You Feel Like It and the Hope That Stops You
It is late September. The sugar maple is tinged with fire, a burning mix of orange and red and yellow, engulfing the green. Honking Vs of geese fly over the barn. One yellowed leaf curls on the grass. Three Sandhill cranes lift off alfalfa field, warbling their way into the air, a trinity created by […]