It’s funny how our minds work and how a simple, everyday sound or scent can trigger a memory. Yesterday I was outside taking a dog to potty. It was a particularly humid evening, and I heard the summer sound of katydids waking up as the sun went down. For a brief moment I was transported…
What if we stopped complaining? It’s a simple question. Maybe a bit naïve. Maybe even overdone as a sermon topic. But I’ll ask it anyway—what would change in our days, our relationships, and even our thoughts if we truly stopped complaining? This post comes from something we tried during our Sunday school time at the…
When I was a little girl, Christmas was basically over once we ate our big meal and opened all our gifts. In fact, my dad used to start taking the tree down pretty much as soon as we cleaned up all the wrapping paper. (To be fair, we had a real Christmas tree back then…
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…
This is the letter I am sending with my Christmas cards this year. It seemed as though it might be worth sharing here as well. I have omitted the personal details of the family update section. Hello, friends! I debated as to whether or not to write a letter this year for my Christmas cards….
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…
Before I planted my garden this summer, I read a book about homesteading. No, I’m not becoming a farmer. Frankly, my husband and I are too old for a new venture like that. Initially I wanted to learn about ways in which I could apply some of the homesteading concepts right here in the suburbs;…
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…
I just got back from the beach. It was a quick, five day trip to Florida. As usual, I went prepared with a book, my journal, and my laptop. I ended up not using any of them. Since two of our five days were spent traveling there and back, we had a total of three…
I’ve been doing a lot of work lately. Hard work. And I don’t mean manual labor. I mean the difficult work of sitting with your feelings, examining them, and processing them. In my last therapy session, I had such a breakthrough moment that my therapist gently encouraged me to write about it in the hopes…
A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, we were sleeping in our basement because the weather forecast was predicting strong storms for our area overnight. Around 5am, I was awakened by loud noises. At first, in my sleepy daze, I actually thought we were in the middle of a tornado. There was no train…
(part two of my previous post….) “I wonder as I wander out under the stars…” We’ve had some frigid weather since Christmas. We had snow, followed by ice, followed by more snow, and it covered the ground here in Kentucky longer than normal because it was so cold. I love how quiet the world seems…
There are many things I wonder about at this time of year. I wonder about silly things like what it would be like to go “a wassailing” or what the words of “Good King Wenceslas” really mean. And then I wonder about more serious things like what Mary’s family must have thought when she told…
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…
For the past several years, I’ve been expanding my creative outlets and thinking about what it means to create. Those of you who know me would probably say that you’ve always considered me to be a creative person, but I never saw myself quite like that. I think that’s because I was comparing my creations…
(This is an update to a devotional I wrote two years ago.) I can’t believe it’s been two years since I watched the demolition of my grandparents’ house. It still doesn’t seem real sometimes. My family has lived in Kentucky since the days of Daniel Boone. In fact, as some of the first settlers, our…
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