A few days before Thanksgiving, I found myself sitting at the bedside of a friend who was dying. Just 61 years old, John* ended up in a nursing home in Kentucky after becoming seriously ill while visiting a friend one county over. It’s a long story, but he was not able to return to his…
Once a week I sing with a community choir that rehearses inside a local church’s sanctuary. The building is relatively new because it was reconstructed after a fire, but it has several features that harken back to a Gothic cathedral. Sweeping timber arches spread across the lofty ceiling like the hull of a ship. Three…
On my last visit to the nursing home, I had two separate encounters that spoke to my heart about how we use our most valuable resource: time. The first experience was not exactly unique in that we deal with this every Sunday. There’s a resident who is incredibly vocally impaired. His mind is perfect. It’s…
Perhaps you’ve heard of the great thermostat wars…the battle each household must fight over who controls the temperature of the house. We fight that one in our house, but we have an additional battle– the Christmas lights fight. I love Christmas decorations. I go all out. I have lights all over our house, and not…
Recently I was asked to pray with a nursing home resident who was nearing the end of her life. Other than her name, the only thing that I knew about her before I arrived was that she was in her fifties though she looked like a much older woman, and that she had had a…
I’m convinced that most people today conflate the concept of manners and respect, and I do not believe that the two are the same. The Oxford online dictionary defines manners as “a person’s outward bearing or way of behaving toward others.” Think of it like saying “please” and “thank you,” “yes ma’am” or “no sir,”…
When I was a little girl, there was no question that my family would spend Easter weekend with my grandparents and attend Sunday church services with them. This also meant that my sister and I would wear frilly spring dresses and our patent leather white shoes. Some years I had dainty little gloves, a hat,…
I was asked to write a devotional for a ladies group–“Growing in 2024.” Here’s what I came up with. (Rather, here’s what I think God helped me write.) If you know me even a little, or if you’ve read much of my writing, you know I love trees. It’s difficult to pinpoint why I love…
I’ve been absent for a bit. Sorry about that. I had a long bout of a Covid-like virus in November and I’ve been scrambling to catch up ever since. I didn’t feel like writing anything until just recently, and now my brain is lighting up with ideas. Here’s the first one….. We just had a…
Presidential hopefuls take the debate stage to brag about their accomplishments and bluster about the incompetencies of their opponents. At the same time, a frail elderly woman lies in bed waiting for hours for someone to come change her and clean her up; no one asks her about her accomplishments in her life before age…
No summer of my childhood would have been complete without Vacation Bible School. Wafer cookies wrapped in a napkin, styrofoam cups filled with Kool-Aid, crafts in the church basement, and memory work competitions that drove me to spend every afternoon of the week cramming Bible verses into my brain so I could win a trophy…
End of content
End of content