Gaining a heart of wisdom
I hardly ever bake our very favorite homemade bread. It's delicious and moist with just a hint of molasses. We enjoy it with soup, and it makes the best toast, but I don't make it very often because it has to rise twice in the bowl and then, again, in the pans. (I'll be sharing… Continue reading Wait, Trust, and Declare Your Allegiance to Easter Hope
Waiting for spring, hanging off the northeast end of the U.S. mainland, it’s a challenge to get into an Easter frame of mind. The dark is still holding sway over the light, and resurrection-thinking requires a muscular faith. Although the calendar tells me that spring will come, this hope in a future date can seem like a… Continue reading When You Are Wondering if Spring Will Ever Come
Every spring, property owners here in Maine cede our rights over to the blackfly population. With their serrated jaws and overwhelming numbers, they swarm by the hundreds, drawn by breath and body heat. I've seen them drive even the most determined souls back into the safety of home. When my four sons were all small… Continue reading Rest for the Weary and Hope for a New Season
Hanging off the northeast end of the U.S. mainland, waiting for evidence that spring has, indeed, arrived, it’s a challenge to get into an Easter frame of mind. The dark is still holding sway over the light, and resurrection-thinking requires a muscular faith. Pressing into a Truth that challenges me to fathom the unfathomable, I… Continue reading The Whispered Hope of Easter: A Promise of Eternal Spring
Sunday Scripture The woods behind my house is waking up. Sprigs of green are shooting their way up through last year's matted carpet, and swollen buds hint that my view is about to change from grey to vibrant. I never tire of this transition from death to life. God has crafted an infinitely varied range… Continue reading Have You Ever Been Inspired to Praise God for His Creativity?
Sunday Scripture Did you remember to spring forward today? Every year when we "spring forward" and go around the house setting all our clocks ahead one hour, I lament the disappearance of that hour of sleep or productivity. I know... we get the hour back in the fall, but, to tell the honest truth, some… Continue reading Do You Feel As If Your Spring Forward Is Just Plain Sprung?
Sunday Scripture Spring is still a bit hard to notice here on the hill. Luci Shaw would say that it's "a promise in the closed fist of a long winter," and the chunk of snow still melting on the north, shaded side of the house would attest to that poetic description. Even so, there is… Continue reading Do You Need Encouragement to Keep on Singing?
When my thrifty mother-in-law made mincemeat, she would start with the venison roast from a deer who may have had the audacity to nibble on her tulip leaves. From there, she would improvise, adding whatever needed using up on that particular day: a batch of jam that didn’t “set up” just right or an over-abundance… Continue reading Evidence of Grace in the Cycling of Seasons
Every spring, property owners here in Maine cede our rights over to the blackfly population. With their serrated jaws and overwhelming numbers, they swarm by the hundreds, drawn by breath and body heat, and driving even the most determined souls back into the safety of our homes. When my four sons were all small and… Continue reading Musings: May 2018
When a committee of five gathered to draft the Declaration of Independence, it was Thomas Jefferson's pen that framed the colonies' complaints against England. Then, taking their own quills in hand, his colleagues made 43 changes to the document, and when it was presented to Congress, they made an additional forty-plus edits. Learning that Thomas… Continue reading Musings: April 2018
Living Our Days 