I turned the melon in my hand, analyzing every inch, trying to find any evidence of ripeness. Because, as we all know, picking a good melon — whether cantaloupe, honeydew, or watermelon — feels almost as risky as a trip to Vegas. You can give it your best shot, but there’s little guarantee you’ll go home with the jackpot. Still, I examined its ...
There's a particular Starbucks I frequent, one that sits across the street from the courts where my daughter, Faith, has tennis practice. While Faith works on her tennis game, you can often find me working on my writing game at one of their outdoor tables under an umbrella. I'm there a lot this summer. One day, after ordering my typical iced ...
We thought we were pretty high tech cruising down the road, some twenty plus years ago, in our Pontiac Transport minivan (lovingly known as the dust buster on wheels). For long family road trips, we were among the first to have a "deluxe" video tape player that plugged into the cigarette lighter. Cell phones and video games had not yet burst on ...
Hallelujah! Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty expanse. Praise him for his powerful acts; praise him for his abundant greatness. Praise him with trumpet blast; praise him with harp and lyre. Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and flute. Praise him with resounding cymbals; praise him with ...
Do you remember what you were doing around this time ten years ago? I do. It would have been the summer my daughter turned seventeen, and my boys would have been turning fifteen and twelve. At that point, I had been blogging about four years, and the world was a different place, the internet a different animal. Social media was a train gaining ...
“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get ...
Nine years ago, at the age of seventeen, I had brain surgery to remove a tumor the size of a golf ball. For months, sickness snuck up on me in the early morning hours and hung on until night fell and sleep took over. No matter who we spoke with or what we tried, there were no answers. Until a Tuesday evening MRI, which led to a Wednesday ...
It is boating season around my part of the country. Everyone is hitting any body of water they can find to cool off from the unrelenting summer heat. There is nothing quite like the feel of that cool mist off the water hitting your hot skin as you fly across it. While I don’t go boating often, I have been on all kinds of boats -- boats on a ...
Sometimes I forget. Sometimes in the midst of church life, I just do and forget the who. I forget the why and do not rest in His because. As I talk to people who have left the local church, I get it. It's easy to become disillusioned and frustrated, disconnected from unmet expectations, but regardless of the reason, my heart grieves. Scripture ...
When my family had lived in the Midwest for a year, and I was in a season of parenting three tiny humans, we attended a church full of beautifully kind and loving people. After some time, I finally began forming relationships with a few of the good folks there. One particular Sunday when my husband was out of town for work, I managed to navigate ...
