Yesterday was such a beautiful day! Even while the snow was still slowly melting along the tree line in my backyard, I was out looking at the garden beds, making mental plans for spring cleaning and planting, likely just weeks away. I so easily slipped into the future, seeing the garden full of healthy and […]
Read more "In the Blossoming of Time"How good are you at being quiet? And for how long? Can you turn off your phone, turn off the television, and spend time just being available for whatever God wants to say in the silence, inside and outside of you? If you’re like most people today, it might not be long before you start […]
Read more "Into the Wilderness"We each have, tucked away in our hearts, memories of extra special moments throughout our lives when we felt especially loved. In fact, it’s a wonderful thing to do, once in a while—an exercise that’s good for our heart and our hope–to revisit those moments in our lives, starting from the time we were very […]
Read more "To Love Truly"Today’s message is about the power of example and the way our lives speak—knowingly or not, and for good or for ill—into the lives of others. We never really know when our actions will leave a lasting impact on someone else. It might be the time we helped someone pick up a bag of groceries […]
Read more "The Power of Presence"Many years ago, when my children were small and we lived together in a big limestone farmhouse in Columbus, Indiana, I was living a busy and often stressful life. I was a self-employed writer with a small business and juggling a busy household and school activities with deadlines, editors, and more. It was often my […]
Read more "Opening, Again, to Joy"Memories are such funny things. This week, out of the blue, I remembered a moment from more than 30 years ago that became the seed for this morning’s message. My brother John had come to visit when I was living in Brown County, and we were having coffee in the kitchen that morning when he […]
Read more "Our Part in Peace"I imagine that you are, like I am, still processing and trying to understand the events of the last couple of weeks in our country. Our souls were shocked to see such violence and disrespect—disregard for the well-being of people and traditions and institutions. And we are still on edge as we hear about safety […]
Read more "Remembering Prayer"Friends, this has been a heartbreaking week. As the daily death toll of COVID-19 surpassed previous records and hospitals across the country reported being overwhelmed and out of beds, we watched horror-stricken and helpless as violence, chaos, and unchecked rage boiled over in our nation’s capital, defacing one of our democracy’s most sacred places, threatening […]
Read more "The World We Want"My favorite Far Side cartoon—which I found probably 15 or 20 years ago—shows a young boy sitting at a table, with feathers in the air all around him and soot on his face, like there was an explosion, the result of an obvious science experiment gone wrong. The caption says, “God as a kid tries […]
Read more "Toddler Jesus"Well, Friends, here we are at the end of a very long, very challenging, and for far too many, a very painful year. 2020 has brought hardships on just about every level you can imagine—physical, emotional, occupational, financial, and relational. All across the country and around the world, we have lost loved ones, we’ve lost […]
Read more "Choose Well"