This is my prayer for you

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To skate or not to skate

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"It's just like riding a bike" I assured my daughter as we were lacing up our ice skates. "Don't worry, you'll remember how to do it." And so we clumped our way onto the ice and as she shakily pushed off  I realized unsteadily that my skates were way too loose. Clump, clump back to the bench. Untie, uncleat, pull the laces tight starting from the bottom, rezigzag through the clips, clump, clump back to the ice. Then I found that I was absolutely wrong. This was so NOT like riding a bike as I grabbed for the side of the rink. Tentatively I tried stimulate that muscle memory of how skating works and found my muscles were suffering from Alzheimer's! Perhaps it was from the lack of blood flow to my feet as the laces were now a fantastic tourniquet! Back to the bench, back to the ice to give to all the impression that I was a total novice. As I (so not!) glided around the rink I was incredulous! As a child living in faculty housing of Northland Inte...
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Smudges on our souls

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My whole world has titled off its axis just a bit since yesterday. Why, you might ask? It’s because I washed all my windows. In Chicago we've had some unusually mild weather so, before the blizzards blow, I took advantage of the warm days and cleaned all the windows inside and out. A clarity has been added. Gone are the smudges, the built up dirt that distorted the view as I looked outside. The light in my house is now brighter, clearer and it changes what I see and how I feel. Life is messy. We get smudges on our souls and the dirt of discontent builds up on our spirits; but then God provides agents to wash it away. It may be a song, a sermon, a conference, a comment, a catastrophe, or a circumstance and suddenly we see life more clearly and it changes everything. Matthew West sings in My Own Little World about his small safe world with "population: me” until he sees a homeless widow and now his world consists of two. What would we see if our eyes were opened? ...
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Underneath it all

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The trees are in the process of covering their exposed parts as they are donning a new coat of green for the spring. The stark intricate patterns of limbs and branches will soon sport a new shape; a rounded green leafy silhouette hiding the skeleton beneath. Every year when the leaves fall I am again struck by the complexity of the wooden network that's been hidden for three seasons. How limbs branch out and divide and split until they are but small twigs. There's a beauty in that underlying composition. What lies underneath in us? We cover ourselves with the leaves of positions, responsibilities, and general busyness but if all that were to fall away who are we under it all? Is all the greenery support by a strong heart? A solid spirit? A network of beliefs and convictions that make up who we are? Most seasons we are covered in our leaves but occasionally they are blown away – by some type of storm in our lives; then we see who are and the condition of what lies beneath. In al...
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