Waking up this morning with a renewed sense of purpose, of intentional discipleship – both submitting and reaching out – to an assignment of teaching what Jesus gave as His last words, after modeling what that actually looks like in practice in Bethany. Nearly two weeks before His crucifixion, Jesus was standing in front of the tomb of His friend Lazarus, who had died. His two sisters, in two separate conversations, had cried out to Him, “If You would have been here, my broth

Oh Lord, You are so good to us! You truly put eternity in our hearts! Thank You for being so insistent and patient and continuing to draw us to Yourself, with both blessings and holy discontent with the things we keep putting in front of You!! I woke up this morning in the middle of a conversation reminding me that the same things we get frustrated with others for doing, we do ourselves. I am grateful God doesn’t let us point fingers at others without interjecting His own con

This morning’s rising was...strange. I woke up aware my body was uncomfortably warm and peeled back the covers. The early-ness of 2:20 am had me negotiating a return to sleep, even though I already had a lot running through my head, and I had a desire to put thoughts to paper to see where God would take me this morning. After an Encountering Peace meditation – and still being awake – I opened my Bible to see what He wanted to say. I opened to a divot in the side of the pages

I woke up this morning, almost startled out of sleep at 4 am, when my mind drifted from a lazy dream wandering around my consciousness, to a bright white title page with bold print declaring a chapter heading: "Ax Men". I didn’t get to see any text with it as I suddenly bolted awake, but I knew what it meant as my eyes opened in the darkness of my room. Ax Men are those men in our lives that are very precious gifts in our lives. They are the dragon slayers. They are the men w

The other day, I finally put to “blog paper” the realization that we need to “strengthen our feeble knees” and ski, despite the ruts of our emotional, traumatic, damaged past and I shared the story of my first experience with skiing and being towed up the hill holding for dear life onto a tow rope…skis crossing and getting tangled in the ruts formed by so many people’s previous trips up that particular area on the slope and how so many of us kept falling – and getting frustra

This morning I woke up a couple times, drifting back to sleep and then becoming aware of a song… and in the almost fully awake, the song changed... and I smiled. The tempo was a big shift, and then I started focusing on the words and let out a contented sigh, relaxing into the rest and peace that can seem so elusive during the busyness of the daytime. The first song was drumming and marching through my head, not unpleasantly, just a more active beat: “But I would walk five h

The past few days have been a fountain of opportunities for me to recall and recount situations in my life that have taught (and re-taught) me important lessons that, if I keep focused on the Teacher ☺, I will have a better time navigating the tough spots. Yesterday included one of those situations that would have gone smoother had I kept this in mind! Thankfully, because I had just shared this childhood experience earlier in the day, am in the middle of reading a book on con

This morning, waking up with recent conversations running through my head, I am reminded that who you listen to matters. Who are you listening to? To which voices are you giving space in your head? I was reflecting on my growing up years, looking at who I gave credence and attention to – and what the results were at different times in my life. More often than not, when I listened to people my own age at the time, my outcomes were not as beneficial as when I listened to more “

The words drift through on the lilt of the melody… “And the people sing, Holy! To the King of kings, Holy! You are lifted high, Holy! Holy Forever!” As I drift from asleep to awake, verses flow from two different books, “Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; Do you not perceive it? …” (Isa. 43:19) and “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will no

I’m CONVINCED my refrigerator is hiding things from me! Seriously! Have you ever gone in to get something you’re pretty sure you had in there, and while you’re looking, found a fuzzy, blue green lump that you have NO IDEA what it used to be? Maybe by the shape you can kind of guess, but you’re not really sure. The WORST is finding a partially filled milk jug, and as you lift it up, you can tell even though it’s still white, it’s no longer a liquid. UGH! You bring it over to t