Thoughts

hen we are still, quiet, we remember that He IS God, and we are not. That seems like a simple concept, but in reality, in everyday practice, we forget. We worry like we are in charge. We act like we are in charge. We talk like we are in control. But we aren’t.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ changed the course of history and made forgiveness of sin possible.

"Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8, KJV). God tells us in his word that he does not change. We repeat this and teach this, but as we parse scripture and divide testaments, I think we sometimes forget the reality of this astounding truth. We see the Old Testament God and overlook that he is the one who came to us in the New Testament. We read of Moses meeting God on Mount Sinai without remembering that Jesus stood on the Mount of Transfigu

Pain. Excruciating pain! That is what I felt when the heavy metal door closed on my finger. That finger hurt for weeks. I protected it and nursed it, and it seemed to be healing. I no longer wore a bandage because it did not bleed at the slightest touch. I could go for hours without any thought of the unfortunate incident….unless I happened to bump it. Then immediately, the pain would flare like no healing had occurred. The finger looked better, but it was not well.

During this week of the cross, I think about the people who surrounded Jesus during His last days and last moments. I always spend time reading the chapters in the gospels that describe His last days on this Earth as the Son of Man, and I think about His interactions with these people. As we move toward Resurrection Sunday, the cross is always on my mind. I remember that before He rose, He suffered. Before He ascended to His Father, He was persecuted. Before He celebrated the

We keep a compost pile where we dump our food scraps each day. We mix in leaves from the yard and a little dirt, stir it around periodically, ensure that it stays damp, usually from the rain, and wait for nature to run its course. The result is rich soil that we can use in flower pots and flower beds. Along the way, opossums and raccoons get some nighttime snacks, a few potatoes grow from the scraps, and other interesting things happen. Overall, the compost pile is a great ad

My husband and I went out on the Gulf of Mexico several months ago in search of grouper and red snapper. After snagging more than enough fish for the likes of us, we headed in to dock the boat. As he slowly floated us toward the dock where he would refuel, he instructed me to catch the lines to secure the boat to the dock. I gingerly stepped on the side of the boat and thought, “This is okay. I can do this.” The boat continued to move forward/sideways into the tight spot,

Dust, destruction, noise, debris all describe the environment that surrounds renovation. Our family should know. My husband is busily renovating a large portion of our daughter’s home. What a mess. But it is a mess working toward something beautiful, something better than before. So, she is willing to wade through the rubble, deal with the dust and the inconvenience, wear ear plugs when the noise is too much, keep the children busy, and generally stay the course while she a

This world comes at us fast and furious. New technology. New gadgets. New expectations. New laws. New taxes. New ways of doing things. Updates to phones. Updates to banking. We just get used to a system, and the system changes. At work and at home we live in a constant state of upheaval. There seems to be no place of rest. I hate to plug in my phone at night, because I'm afraid it will look different when I wake up. Some days I feel the frustration building in my soul,

St. Simon's Island, Georgia Tonight, a tiny sliver, almost missed behind the trees, appeared. I’m always surprised by the sight, amazed at its delicacy. My favorite phases of the moon that appear just before or just after the new moon are the waning and waxing crescents. Those are the scientific names. In our home, though, we call them the ‘fingernail moon’, thus dubbed when our daughter was four years old and noticed the crescent for the first time. We agreed that the name

Harry S. Truman State Park, Missouri My dad was a happy man, but he took his life and his responsibilities seriously. He worked hard, and he taught us to be accountable in life. Outings often found us in the woods or in areas around lakes and water. In Florida, that means weeds and snakes and alligators. Early in life, we were taught to look where we stepped and not to run carelessly through high weeds or to jump over rotting logs, a favorite resting place of snakes. Instea

Riding along the roads between Florida and Texas this past week gave me plenty of time to view the bare trees of winter. They lined the roadways, their branches intertwined and reaching skyward, some straight, others gnarled and aged. I enjoyed the beauty of their architecture, and I am always amazed at the uniqueness and variety of their shapes and sizes. The storms the trees have weathered were evident in the scars the trunks and branches showed. Some were bent and twisted

I have heard the invitation in my heart throughout this season, “Come to the Manger.” It has echoed as I waited in traffic and walked in crowded stores. I have felt its pull as I listened in church and read my Bible. “Come to the Manger.” The words repeated in my head, and even though I pushed them away, they returned like persistent mosquitoes, always there when I was still enough to hear. “Why the manger?” I thought. But even as I questioned, I could see myself sitt

“Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:1 – 2, KJV) Someone asked me this week, “What does it mean to bless the Lord? How can we bless God?” That’s a really good question, and […]

Things that make me smile – I could go on, and when I do I realize that there is much to smile about in this world. So many blessings heaped on us each day. There are trials. There is hurt, but God pads it all with joy and beauty if we open our eyes to […]

When I unfurled the hose this morning, I didn’t expect a lizard to jump into my bucket, but he did. And the problem began. That lizard bounded right into some fertilizer that was in the bottom of my bucket. I didn’t know what the fertilizer would do to him, so I tried to get him […]

Paul lived in troubled times. During his time in Ephesus, Nero, a wicked tyrant, was the emperor of Rome. Jewish leaders sought to persecute Jews who turned to the Christian faith, and paganism was rampant. I don’t know if there was a right and a left, but there was certainly a right and a wrong […]

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. 4 Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” – Psalm 37:3-4 Honoring God is a privilege. Trusting in Him is a treasure. Delighting in Him is an everyday joy. […]

We downsized and moved into a new home, and I thought that the days of items piling up in closets and drawers were over. We had given away, sold, and thrown away so much stuff. Now everything had its own place. Fast forward a few years and here we are cleaning out closets and […]

“Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.” – Psalm 62:1 If I could paint a picture of faith, I wouldn’t paint a picture of a beautiful cathedral or a church on a picturesque hillside. My portrait would not be of a mansion or of a life without care and problems. While […]