The Light in the Corners

            Discouragement is a dirty word. It tries hanging around me sometimes, like some stinky sock that got left in some obscure place in the room (remember, I have boys).  You can smell it but can’t quite put your finger on where it’s coming from. Sure you can think back to a moment or event that may have brought it on, sometimes though, you can't – you just know Eeyore came in and took a seat in your kitchen. Just sitting there…clouding up perspective and dimming your thoughts...

Saturday - What A Day!

    The sun beckoned me even before I opened my eyes. Saturday. Thoughts of coffee and toast with cinnamon sugar drove me from my bed. The day stretched out before me. Finally a day with nothing pressing for attention, and even the things that were had been filed away to the back of my mind to handle some other day. Any other day. Just not today. It was Saturday.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

            The boys had some friends over this weekend. All night video game marathons and lots of ice cream were on the menu. House guests always get me evaluating the atmosphere of our home. A place usually inhabited by the same six people living life together day-in and day-out, suddenly joined by a few new faces. What do they feel in our home, what's their impression?  There's no pressure to be any different than we usually are, of course, but I wonder if our interactions are similar to those they experience in their own home, or vastly different?

THE GREAT CALM

            “And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”  Mark 4:37-40 

Howdy Neighbor!

             Anybody here grow up in Sunday School? For many, we remember from those early years the great stories of the Bible. It is filled with amazing accounts of real people in everyday lives who did extraordinary things.  Queen Esther and her rise from obscurity to royalty.   Daniel alone all night in a pit with hungry lions, their mouths held shut by an angel.  Paul and Silas singing praises in the dungeon until the earth shook beneath them and their chains fell off while the prison doors swung wide.   David and Goliath.   So many great, true stories. Our teachers used those stories to teach truths to us in a powerful way.

Someday We'll Miss This

            As I lay in bed last night trying to fall asleep I kept feeling crumbs in the sheets. No matter how fervently I swept them away, I could still feel them. Maddening. Later when my husband came to bed, he asked in frustration, "Where's my pillows?" Truth be told, I had one of them (making a grand princess total of three for me!) and I remembered his other one had been used earlier in the day for one of the kid's forts. After he finally got situated, lying there in the dark, I heard the inevitable question, "Why are there crumbs in our bed!?" Why indeed. I smiled into the darkness. "Kids. Someday we'll miss this."

Abide In Me

“Abide in me….”

The branch must be attached to the vine for life to flow into it. “By God I am in Christ”

(I have been placed into the vine by God and not of myself) but abiding in Christ is up to me. So then, the question to ask is, HOW do I abide?