Gaining a heart of wisdom
Sunday Scripture At the beginning of a new year and the winding down of the old, I love to look back on where I’ve been. With a coating of frosty white on the surface of my garden, it’s hard to imagine that just three months ago I was harvesting cucumbers and green beans by the… Continue reading Join Me in Remembering a Bountiful Year
We're four days away from Thanksgiving here in the United States, and since the fourth Thursday in November is late in the month this year, we've had lots of time to prepare ourselves for a celebration of gratitude. How are you doing? I will confess to a certain grumpiness over the collision of holidays ahead… Continue reading Are You Showing the Symptoms of Gratitude Derailed? Sunday Scripture
What do you bring with you when you come to God? Psalm 95 suggests thanksgiving as cargo: "Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms." (Psalm 95:1, 2) I'm thinking about… Continue reading What Will You Bring to Worship? – Sunday Scripture
According to the Apostle Paul, gratitude is more than a pumpkin-spice-feeling. It is a matter of obedience to the will of God. Author and poet Wendell Berry put words into the mouth of a fictional, elderly widow named Hannah Coulter who, in addition to being a crackerjack farmhand when needed and probably making a great… Continue reading Sunday Scripture ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
I love a decisive verb, especially when it appears in the setting of a solid, declarative sentence. Isaiah 12 is just right for this season of gratitude, falling leaves, and stiff breezes. The prophet’s bracing words stand up to the fading light here on the far edge of the Eastern Time Zone with a pronouncement… Continue reading Sunday Scripture ~ Isaiah 12:1
Cold February is no context for thoughts of spring. Like the daffodils, our hopes are asleep under a crust of dirty snow. Nonetheless, retailers rush to display Easter candy and sleeveless, frilly dresses for us to admire in our winter coats and boots. Thoughts of resurrection seem out of place somehow when bare trees can't… Continue reading Musings: February 2019
The distance around my elliptical driveway is one tenth of a mile. I know this because I drove around it, watching the odometer—and then did it again just to be sure. This fall I’ve been doing a careful jog-trot around its leaf-strewn gravel, a compromise intended to jump start a flagging metabolism without putting undue… Continue reading Gratitude Is a Gift for All Seasons
One morning, deep into the throes of our kitchen renovation, it dawned on me that I had no idea where our toaster was. Having reduced breakfast to the lowest common denominator of toasted bagels with cream cheese, my quest for the toaster was more than idle curiosity, and when it showed up in the furnace… Continue reading Following the Instructions for a Grateful Heart
It's the terminal milestone on the parenting journey: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." III John 4 Even so, there are a good many ways of measuring its achievement. It's what we aim for and pray for, but how do we know that are children have made the leap from… Continue reading The Beauty of Sacrifice and the Joy of Giving
Sometimes it’s the very thing that makes you wild, the thing that feels as if it may be your undoing, which ultimately saves your life. For me right now, the pebble in my shoe is a 15-foot speed boat parked parallel to the north side of our house. The college-aged son is a project magnet… Continue reading Following the Trail Back to Hope
