Every morning I start the day with a cup of coffee. I can’t even remember a time in my life when I didn’t drink coffee. I wasn’t one of those people who started needing the caffeine rush to study for final exams. By the time I could read and way before I was being tested in school, my coffee addiction was firmly in place. My daddy taught me to drink coffee when I was a little girl. I would sit by his chair at the “coffee table” and he would…
About a year ago, I reluctantly began reading the Bible in “chunks”. My former pastor in MS started assigning portions of Scripture to the congregation. Each week a few chapters would be listed or announced with the goal of reading the same book or section of the Bible every day that week. The ultimate goal of course was to see something “new” in the passage through the repeated readings.
My friend who is a member there started “chunk reading”. She loved it. I pretended…
Over the last couple of weeks, Sheryl and I have exchanged emails, phone calls, texts, books and some pictures of spider webs. Oh? Didn’t see that one coming? Of all the things we could share with each other, why would we share photos of spider webs? No particular reason – other than one morning I was out walking and across the fields shimmering in the early sunlight I saw thousands of little tiny dew laced webs. They were visible for over a hundred yards and I stopped to think about all the spiders…
I love analogies. Love them. Ask me the difference between a metaphor and a simile and I will have to phone a friend, but I can come up with an analogy for just about any given situation. My son often asks me, “How do you DO that?” I have no idea – it’s just the way my brain works.
Some analogies are better than others and some analogies are more effective for certain audiences. For example, here’s my latest sports analogy since we moved…
I have a devotional book I use every morning. It’s a simple collection of verses – no commentary or cute stories – just a few Scriptures grouped around a common theme. Not surprisingly, the “lead verse” often shoots straight to the heart of the matter that’s in the depths of my heart. It happens with such regularity that recently after some disturbing late night news (not on television but in my little personal world) I crawled into bed with this thought, “Can’t wait to see what God does with this…
The text came to me but the desired parent at the moment was my husband.
“Is Dad busy?”
“Hang on, let me get him for you.”
We often laugh at the “division of labor” that has evolved with our almost 21 year old son. I get the calls and texts that are relationship driven. Bill oversees the scientific and technology department. The two guys can talk for hours about the next computer upgrade or apps they share on their iPhones. And since William changed his major to Pharmacy, thus following in his father’s…
Last Thursday (June 20) we left our empty house in Newtown, PA and headed west. West??? You thought we said Tennessee, right? Well, before you grab your atlas or old geography book, Tennessee is still in the South. But we had some unfinished business in Pennsylvania – mainly driving west to see our son to tell him goodbye. (sniff, sniff) After hugs and kisses and a few tears, we drove to Harrisburg to visit some dear friends to bid them farewell. Somehow we…
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned our family would be moving soon. Soon is now SOON! The clock is ticking. Last weekend we emptied out half our house and moved our son into his first apartment. Next week, our daughter leaves for camp in Mississippi and then the true countdown begins. Packers and movers will arrive and we will start our journey South. I am trying to decide what goes, what stays, what will be placed into storage and what we will need until we see all our “stuff”…
Last week, I shared about our upcoming move to Tennessee. The first thing we had to do when we found out we were relocating was get our house here ready to sell. That involved a lot of gathering and sorting and boxing things we needed to donate or trash. Since we moved here in 2006, our daughter completed Kindergarten through 6th grade and our son went through 9th grade and three years of college. In other words, we’ve accumulated a lot of “stuff”.
So in January of this year, we began…
Sometimes the subject matter found in children’s books is decidedly, well…not so childlike. In fact, many of the themes presented in books on my 12 year old daughter’s bookshelf are topics that as adults, we still find ourselves struggling with.
It takes a rare literary talent and a great love for children to be able to present the topic of racial tensions in 1960’s America in a way that’s understandable and approachable for all ages. Yet, that is exactly what Augusta Scattergood does in the book “Glory Be”. Here’s a synopsis:
A…