Even Whispered Words Echo

Long ago, someone felt led to share with me that she felt I was carrying a burden of grief. At the time, I thought she had heard wrong, since I'd never yet had to bury anyone close to me. I couldn't imagine anything other than death being a cause for grieving. She was so right on...

This is the first winter I've found myself not dragged under by the darkness and cold, and although I still highly dislike the cold, there is just too much beauty in the winter to waste energy in hating it. It reminds me of the poem: "The winter loves me. That is, I love winter, And when...

(Named Tamarra, after the name I gave to my lump . . "Here today . . gone Tamarra") It’s been almost 2 weeks now since I found the lump on a Friday night. I imagine everyone who’s ever faced this sort of disruption in their life has felt very much the same things I’ve felt as it’s unfolded...

I wonder what lies beneath The piles and heaps and shifting mounds of Fluted, convoluted Rippled dips and escalades That rearrange themselves and rearrange again again . . Sculpted by the scorching, arid winds. Does it have a choice? In where is more, is less, Is sharply ridged...

What an incredible day . . what an incredible life you have given to me, Lord. I was so delighted to see who was leading worship this morning, my favorite team . . and when they led us in this beautiful song, all I could do was stand there in full awe . . and weep . . IN YOU (Mercy Me)...

Each day for me now is a miracle of change, my reactions to life so very different, and even the most mundane has become a source of wonder. It's certainly not that everything is now going smoothly, and everything I pray for or desire is granted. Far from it! But You, Father, are so present...

For too long I had wallowed in it, that darkness of soul and spirit, I who once had known the Light of wideness and hope . . Psalm 102:6 I am like a melancholy pelican or vulture of the wilderness; I am like a [desolate] owl of the waste places. (Amplified) I suppose it isn't until...

I will forever look back with fondness on that dark morning. There are places where not even the faintest of paths can be found, and others worn so deeply by millennia of travel . . where no one dares deviate even slightly. We pride ourselves on being unique at something or other, hoping to...

She stood there, dazed and quite honestly in total surprise to find us there, though I, too, was startled to see them sitting in the back when we came. Like the old days. There she stood, talking of them again as if no time had elapsed whatsoever. Years, though, have passed for us, this...

James 4:1-10 (The Message) Get Serious 1-2 Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don't have and are...

It’s an old video, but it kept coming to mind for several days. There is something so compelling about the massive warrior that dominates the unfolding drama. Even though I don’t fully understand the background and context of the story being told, I’m fairly certain he is not “good”, not at...

The same rain fell on both fields, side by side, only a narrow gravel road separating them. The same wind blew. My limited logic would have thought the riper field, brittle and golden with harvest so near, would have been more vulnerable and susceptible to the lodging (flattening) from the...

The aging sentinels, a trio of spartan evergreens, towered over the quieting waters, the dead needles now outnumbering the living. The only noise in the breezeless evening was the harangue of birdcalls in the uppermost, less denuded branches. Even in flight there was no noticeable sound, their...

“It’s haunted, there are ghosts there, they’ve seen several different manifestations,” I found myself telling the Man of God, mostly because the house I spoke of was familiar to him, had once belonged to a relative of his. Just as casually as could be, he answered, “They’re demons, but the...

There, it’s in the Word itself, plain as day. At least in the Message version. “Practice playing Second Fiddle” (Romans 12: 10) Such precisely perfect words for me today in particular, the entire passage of the devotions I opened. Lush with richness, all of it, varied and fresh with new...

There is within each day a continuum of variation. Even in the most benign of days, the temperature rises and falls, the light changes and shadows scuttle across the landscape, and completely cloudless days are very rare where I live. So why would it not be logical to expect that we are so far...

It is a smile that pauses, lingers, An arrow that pierces through, Palms pressed with gentled fire, A burst of mingled hue. It is light that springs from nothingness, And grows to everything It’s knots that slowly tangle In gentled tethering. It’s purposeful and poignant prose That...

The latest word to burrow into my thoughts has been “extricate”, which has provoked the image of the child’s game “Pick-Up-Sticks” . . a tangled stack of pointed spears where the object is to take turns carefully pulling one stick out at a time until the stack wobbles or crashes apart, whereby...

I suppose it's a blessing of experience, that of learning to weather the waitings . . discerning what is a promise and what isn't. I remember my father making promises that he rarely ever kept, and I made myself a promise that I would never promise others anything that had even the slightest...

I love His timing. This morning I heard this quote on a Christian channel, and it could not have come to me at a more timely moment. I had spent the weekend wondering why the dead will simply not stay buried, nor how to get up from the graveside and go on again. "People grow old only by...