How to Stop the Erosion and Fortify Your Soul
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14 I’m sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan this morning. All […]
Much Mulch
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. […]
Hurried and Empty
I scramble out the door carrying too much at once. Managing to get into the car without spilling self-brewed Starbucks all over me, I realize I forgot the keys. I set my coffee mug in the holder and throw everything else onto the passenger seat. Run in. Get keys. Run out. Sit down. Close door. […]
A FAREWELL FOR JO (AND THE HOPE FOR US ALL)
My dear friend Nancy, my neighbor, lost her sister Jo Monday night. 62 years old. Vibrant wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend. Heart attack. Alive in the morning. Gone by night. There’s agony here around this farm, this Holy Week, as we march to Maundy Thursday, the day our Lord wept in a garden as he […]
When You’re Afraid Your Vacation Will Bite and What Really Makes Life Rich
So here I am, on vacation with my husband—sans kids—in Mexico. I’m grateful for some time away to relax. However, the sun I paid to see decided to take a hike during the exact same week! Just plain disappeared the day after we arrived and left us a thick blanket of cloud with some rain […]
Christmas Joy in the Splash of a Cross
Two days before Christmas, I pull my hiking boots on and crisscross the laces, tying tightly. Misted sky is cold, dripping. No wished-for snow. I choose a different path today, the one to the east. Normally, I head west but the evergreens in the forest look so lovely in the mist. I will start there. As […]
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 […]
Fan or Follower
Fan of Jesus? Or follower? I can’t get Pastor’s words out of my head from Sunday. Fan of Jesus? Am I just a fan? Someone waving my hands in worship, moving my own hot air? Just an air-blowing “fan”? Sounds sort of like someone we “friend” on Facebook just because it feels good to have another […]
One With the Gun
Last weekend, Memorial Day weekend, dear friends from Illinois visited us here on the farm. They brought their trunk of artillery and ammo. Todd and I brought ours from the basement gun safe. Spread on the table before us was an assortment of shotguns—a 9mm AR 33-round rifle with virtually no kickback, a couple 9mm handguns […]
Unplug and Connect
Too many cords threaten to strangle the life right out of me. Cords for laptops. Cords for smart phones. Cords for Ipods. Cords for gaming systems and flat-screen TVs and all sorts of kitchen appliances invented for making life faster and easier. We are able to pack more into our days like never before because […]
Fallen
God, I thank you for the respite from daily toils and cares You gave us last week. And I thank you for the fall . . . All five of us got to get away, way up north, just over the border of Wisconsin and into the western tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Big Powderhorn […]
Duckies and Dads and Mountains
I went to church with my dad and stepmom while visiting them in Arizona. To some, this might not seem like such a big deal. To me, it was a momentous occasion. During our phone conversation the day before my flight, Dad asked me if I would go to church with him on Sunday. I […]