It is a Saturday, and a rare one when there are no appointments on the calendar. This allowed us to leave the alarms unset for the morning. Yet, I woke before the dawn. My heart is heavy, causing sleep to elude me. I am hurting for someone close to me, not sure how to help….
On a week when I was feeling a little miffed about some changes in monetary obligations in the approaching new year, with upcoming increases in a house payment and insurance premium, an air conditioner going out in a vehicle (in a state that still gets hot enough to require it, even in December), and a…
Each of our four sons played soccer their kindergarten year, and my husband was purposefully their first coach. He always taught them one important lesson in that first season: everything is hard until it’s easy. In other words, practice, practice, practice. This admonition to work at what does not necessarily come naturally (until it is…
Parenting continues to teach me new things about God and my relationship with him. When one of our sons are absent from us for an extended period, I crave to hear from him, to know how he is doing, to be made privy to his thoughts and actions. I wish to connect to him in…
Do you ever feel pulled in so many different directions at once that you fear that you are about to snap under the strain? Or, maybe you feel like a pitcher, constantly being poured out of in order to fill others’ cups? In the book Gifts from the Sea, the author, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, describes woman…
Whenever someone begins to become a little whiny in my husband’s family, my mother-in-law has been known to say in jest, “Moan, Groan, Gripe, and Complain!” It is always said very lightheartedly, accompanied by a smile, and received with the good humor with which it is conveyed. But, despite the moment of levity, there is…
May is often a hectic month with graduations, end of school events, Memorial Day weekend, and volatile, stormy weather. With a child who has a late May birthday, the culmination of these events nearly always interferes with party plans. Traditionally, intricate plotting and rescheduling is required (and one year, a full out cancellation after 3…
Today, a woman in our congregation gave me some eggs from her backyard chickens. This is like a gift of gold. She commented that, “They are good eggs and we have been blessed with more than we can use. Gotta be some perks for being the preacher’s wife.” Amen to that! 🙂 As I put…
Recently, I have been cycling through a personal “everything is meaningless” slump. During an upswing day, I had an epiphany in Sunday morning Bible class. We were studying the book of Ecclesiastes. Not exactly what some might consider to be good, uplifting subject matter. 🙂 However, as we discussed what it means in chapter 3 that…