A Last Resort Turned First Choice
My friend in high school played cards nearly every day. His family played cards after dinner or at odd times when the chores were finished. His friends played cards on weekends, gathering in dusty, mysterious basements. I turned down every invitation to play cards with him except one, and that was because we were trapped […]
Every Day Was Your Best Day
My husband asks me if I remembered to back up my blog on my hard drive because I have 5 years worth of daily reflections on blogger.com. He tells me it would be so terrible to lose all that writing. I do it as soon as I can get to my computer. (If you haven’t […]
Worn Out But Carried
Have you had the experience of being so exhausted that you just can’t do what you’re supposed to do and you cry out to God and He hears and carries you through it? (Whew, that was a long sentence!) It’s an incredible thing to experience the power of God when you come to the end […]
Run the Mile You’re in
My sister always provides Runnerly Wisdom for me. Today she reminds me not to dwell on the past or focus too much on the future. “Run the mile you’re in,” she says. It’s a long race with many miles behind and many miles ahead. I run the mile I’m in right now.
Two Hard-to-Believe Bible Verses That Make All the Difference
As you know, I’m always in some sort of existential crisis. I am! I really am. My sister’s favorite statement to me as a child (besides “Please stop talking so much!”) was “You need to stop thinking so much.” In my twenties, one of my wise mentors from Camp Greystone told me, “You are making […]
A Time Gone By: Bulletin Boards
My oldest daughter cries out, “Oh, I wish we could go back to a time before iPods!” We were watching a documentary about the little lake community where her grandparents have a home. In the 1940’s, this exact same spot teemed with teenagers who gathered at the Marina to check out the bulletin board to […]
The Only Time I’ve Loved “Very” In a Sentence
I teach writers to scratch words like very, really, seriously, and totally from their writing. You don’t need these words. This kind of sentiment should be obvious to the reader because you’ve showed us or used the precise verb to communicate the feeling of “very much so.” So don’t tell me your character was really […]
Don’t Turn Around Yet
When you cook and then wash dishes for a huge extended family, you find that as soon as you’re certain you’re finished, you find a dirty pot there and a stray glass here. Worse, you clean one side of the kitchen only to turn around and remember all the dirty pans on the stove behind […]
Slow No Wake
Did you know that the “Slow No Wake” signs on a lake mean that within those boundaries your motorized water vehicle must move at the slowest speed possible while still maintaining steering control and forward motion? This slow-but-still-steering-and-moving-forward speed protects swimmers, prevents boating collisions, reduces shoreline corrosion, and allows marshes and wetlands near the shore […]
Good Distractions are Still Distractions
The pastor in a small church on a lake I visited this morning preached about letting our light shine so that our lives glorify God. He was a loud and energetic Southern Preacher, in a bright t-shirt, who popped up at times to ask questions or proclaim a verse of scripture. I held onto my […]