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Avoid the Painful Gap of Misunderstanding

Marie is a gracious, delightful, very alert 91-year-old who lives alone in her country home. Off the main roads country—the ancient dirt road passing in front of her home has a history dating back to the late 1700’s. She has nieces and nephews nearby, all part of her close-knit family. In her younger years Marie was a nurse. She and her husband travelled widely and lived in several states, she’s an avid reader, and an accomplished amateur artist. Conversation topics → Read more

Avoid the Painful Gap of Misunderstanding2020-10-23T11:05:35-04:00

Nothing Time

“Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still” (Ps 4:4b NKJV). Great discoveries are made in stillness. Not only do we find God waiting for us there, we can travel far and wide. We can find answers and revisit past connections. We can know. This afternoon I did absolutely nothing. Yet, I did a great deal. As I sat on our back patio, the first ten minutes or so was spent sipping a good cup of tea while → Read more

Nothing Time2020-10-23T11:09:30-04:00

If People Know it is Coming

The Half Door Drama So, what’s so dramatic about a half door? Nothing by itself. It’s just a door—or so we thought. The installation of a half door to my office seemed like an innocent enough decision. I was in charge of the office of a growing church and was the pastor’s secretary. There was a glass wall on one side that made me visible to anyone walking in the hall. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was the ability → Read more

If People Know it is Coming2020-10-22T09:53:16-04:00

Learning From My Mistakes

I don’t believe in wasting pain. If we’ve gone through a difficult struggle, we’ve already paid the price for the experience. We may as well benefit from it. The only thing worse than a failure is not learning from it. And I continue to learn from the surprising and disappointing outcomes of something I considered successful. I was hired as the secretary to a pastor of an active, growing church. We had just moved to town so we didn’t know → Read more

Learning From My Mistakes2020-10-22T09:53:25-04:00

Answering to No One

As Americans, most of us have no idea the power of a king or a ruler with absolute authority. The most vivid comparison we have personally is when my husband Vernon visited a Communist controlled country that I will not name. To name it could cause harm to the people he visited. That’s how far-reaching their network is. While he was sitting and reading his Bible a Communist inspector walked into his host’s home without knocking and started looking though → Read more

Answering to No One2020-10-22T09:53:34-04:00

Can renewal come out of intense pain?

How are things looking in your part of the world? Are you experiencing pain at the moment? Do you know anyone who is? When we are in intense, often sudden, pain, it quickly peels away everything but what we really need. Recognizing that Jesus is our need centers on seeing life as He does and partnering with Him to change us to be more like Him. Ponder this situation: A woman was so distraught over the accidental death of her 9-year-old granddaughter that she → Read more

Can renewal come out of intense pain?2020-10-22T09:53:42-04:00

His Life in Me

What Jesus did for us is so enormous, so complex, so beyond our imagination our human minds cannot understand it. God has to give us revelation of what it means. From His perspective it is simple: He has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We are in Him and He is in us. (John 17:21) Practically speaking how does that work? Take forgiveness. Nineteen years ago a drunk driver crashed into the side of the car where → Read more

His Life in Me2020-10-22T09:53:53-04:00

The Aroma Of Grace

How pleasant it is to walk outside and smell the honeysuckle. We have banks of them behind our house. Last week I went looking for them and my untrained eye couldn't find any. Today the vines are loaded with blooms and to find them I only need to follow their fragrance, their aroma. We each have an aroma, a distinctive scent. Our aroma has to do with our presence, that quality that makes us who we are. We've all experienced → Read more

The Aroma Of Grace2020-10-22T09:54:03-04:00
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