Devotionals Family Womanhood

Opportunities Come and Go

I mull over this phrase from time to time as I consider the many opportunities I’ve had, the many opportunities I’ve botched and the many opportunities I’ve either missed or passed up through the years.  The missed and passed up opportunities have probably hounded me as much or more than the opportunities I’ve botched.  Usually, […]...
Devotionals Family Motherhood Potpourri

♥ Gleanings

This morning I’m reading in 1 Chronicles 21 & 22.   There King David, yielding to the Lord’s chastening, chooses his punishment:  “…let me fall now into the hand of the LORD: for very great are His mercies; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” (21.13)   For his sin of numbering […]...
Devotionals

Moonless Trust

There are times when nothing soothes or encourages me quite like the writings of women who’ve journeyed with the Lord a long while and have traveled paths paved by those who’ve forsaken all and have followed Christ to “the ends of the earth” literally or when they’ve come to the end of themselves and pressed […]...
Devotionals Essays

a friend’s anniversary letter

I received this letter… and it’s too sweet to not share with you. I console myself with this letter — that perhaps one day I will have a mind to write such a letter. I loved his wife, Florence, even giving our last baby, our daughter Amelia her name as a middle name… and I […]...
Potpourri

Let them understand the pattern

Throughout this past week, I’ve been steeped in thinking of patterns and pieces and things fitting together and how God creatively and masterfully gathers pieces of our lives from here and there — new and old — and fits them together according to His pattern. Ezekiel 43.10-11  Thou son of man, show this house to […]...
Devotionals Streams - Desert

How is it that you do not understand?

I mull this thought over and over as I stir my coffee:  How is it that you do not understand?  It is a question Jesus asked His disciples *after* the feeding of the four thousand as they were reasoning among themselves about their lack of bread.  (Mark 8.16-21) We ought to ask ourselves this question […]...
Devotionals Family Wayward's Womanhood

Testing of Faith

“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:”  […]...
my story Potpourri

Joy and Sorrow

The older I get, the more I see it: the look — the longing look in a mother’s eyes when things didn’t turn out like she hoped.  It’s not necessarily disappointment or despair or even bitterness — it’s just sort of: sorrow.   There’s another look, too — it’s the hopeful look in a mother’s eyes […]...
Devotionals Wayward's Womanhood

This Could Be…

As I read year-end letters, more Christmas cards and letters, headlines and articles, a common theme is always revisited this time of year — sure as New Year’s resolutions, are the slogans and affirmations: Out with the old, in with the New! This Year’s the Year for You!  The sentiments may have very different motivation, […]...
Devotionals

Crowned with Goodness

May the Lord, indeed, crown your year with goodness ♥ and may the coming year be your most blessed year in the Lord.   Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed. 2  O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. 3  Iniquities prevail […]...