My grapevines look very sad. And they are teaching me a thing or two, as usual, about God’s pruning. Thanks to the recovery time dictated by a complete knee replacement, they have mostly not yet been pruned. Care for grapevines (if what you are after is fruit) means reduction of Read more
Regrets. We all have them. I should have bought this when it was on special. I shouldn’t have spoken to my child that way. I should have made a better choice of…anything. I could have had a V-8! Regrets are the subject of today’s fast on my Lenten journey (started Read more
Phil Wickham’s Hymn of Heaven contains the line, “stand beside the heroes of the faith.” Usually that makes me think of the list of notables in Hebrews 11, those who paved the way of faith for us by being utterly everyday humans who were granted unique opportunity to hold on Read more
Add one more failure to the list. At least that’s where I’ve been about it… “I thought you were going to put out a song a month.”…Yeah, yeah, yeah. So did I. (heavy sigh) …”I must have launched out without proper planning, or God’s okie dokie, or something. I don’t Read more
So, there was this guy… Jesus noticed him… a man with one hand that didn’t work right…so much so that it had shriveled up and was useless. In a time and culture where almost everyone’s work was manual, to have only one functioning hand was a big loss. There were Read more
“Repent and believe the gospel.” — Mark 1:15 These are Jesus’ words that stood out from this morning’s lectio Divina, the ancient Christian tradition of soaking in a short passage of scripture and allowing God’s Spirit to focus one’s attention on a portion of it. Processing what He means resulted Read more
No, there are not a dozen drummers in my living room, nor is there a Shakespearean fantasy opening on my back porch tonight! (Just in case you were wondering.) There is however, a tradition that the Wise Men visited the Child on this day years ago. (The Magi’s gifts gave Read more
My blood pressure was through the roof! And then I was in tears. (It is so hard to cry wearing a mask in a doctor’s office with people who are accustomed to giving compassionate medical care, but seem a little at a loss to deal with tears-out-of-nowhere!) The PA thought Read more
This morning did not begin well. I had gone to sleep last night nursing an emotional wound, not seeking healing or comfort for it, just deciding to hold on to it. I went so far as to plan how I would coldly respond if my offender approached me in a Read more
