Thinking on these things . . .

I am smiling as I watch my nephew playing basketball down at the park; smiling because it is good to see him up here and because I realize I've been watching him do this for a very long time. When he was first down there with a ball, he was all of six and struggling to t h r o w that ball high enough to skim the bottom of the net. As the years went on and he grew, his shots got higher and better. He would spend hours down there playing with whoever happened along; he's even let me play a few games of "horse" with him. All that practice made him so good that he played competitively as well. And this morning I see he still picks up a ball; he is still down there taking the shot and making the layup, still engaged, still practicing, still improving. This reminds me of our own walk with the Lord and how, from practice through many years, we also grow in how we relate to God. Listen to the prayer requests of the primary set and you'll hear their hearts for their friend...

I am never more beautiful then when I am in downtown Chicago. Why just yesterday the guy in line with me at McDonald's, addressed me as "Gorgeous"! (and then asked for a quarter...) And then there was Lester Cherry, the StreetWise vendor, who last week told me that I,"Beautiful", made him look good by standing there talking to him. Bring on the paparazzi - I'll allow you to take my picture now!! Funny, when I think I look good I'm invisible and when I'm stressed out and schlepping around in a crowd, I'm irresistible. Sadly I'm only gorgeous when someone wants something from me; it's comical actually to see how quickly I become beautiful or brilliant when someone is trying to sell me something - suddenly I am the most desirable person on the planet! Until I say "no" and then, well then, not so much! But there is One who doesn't try to con me by calling me "Beautiful" or "Gorgeous", instead He calls me b...

Weddings are wonderful things; all that energy, passion, and young new love! There are doves and flowers and a lifetime of promise ahead. Blue sunny skies and flower- festooned smooth pathways stretch onward from the wedding gazebo - a marvelous future awaits! I don't think you would be getting married if you didn't feel exactly that way. Although the statistic has long hovered around half of all marriages ending in divorce, my guess would be not a single couple starting down the aisle expected it would be them... But more wonderful than weddings are a renewal of vows. Do you know why? Simply because this "bride" and "groom" are no longer young and starry eyed. They've been down the path and found it often strewn with thorns under stormy skies. They've gotten to the place where they understand how couples would call it quits and have seen it happen to ones they love. This couple is not so young and definitely not as naive about what is ahead because ...

It’s been a hot sticky summer. So since June my normal attire has been shorts, a tank top, and my long hair pulled up in a pony tail; but tonight, well tonight was going to be different. We were going out for a sunset lake cruise on a hundred year old wooden boat by invitation of friends renewing their wedding vows. This was going to be special. I got my hair cut, wore it down, and even curled it to go along with a new dress and jewelry; I hardly recognized the reflection of the mirror! It felt good to look good for a change. Coming downstairs I expect someone to notice and comment and… no one did. After assuring my husband his shirt looked good, replying to my son mumbling about some computer something or another, and getting markers for my daughter and her friends; I left the house feeling like the invisible woman. I’m not the first to feel invisible. God has promised Abraham a son and being unable to conceive with Sarah, she gave him her servant Hagar to bear a son; and then Hagar g...

World War II A time I always picture in grainy black and white footage... My son is writing a Young Authors Story for school about the conflict in the Pacific and so he has been looking at a lot of books about the battles. The number of casualties is staggering. 2400 at Pearl Harbor 5000 Allied troops on D-Day 1300 at Okinawa 400,000 killed while in the service and over 620,000 wounded. Over 16,000,000 troops deployed worldwide during WW II. SIXTEEN MILLION! These numbers are astounding! Footage from the documentary WWII in HD, show the continual crowded oppressive conditions and not just in the ships, jungles, and assault teams. At home there are thousands of people, women mostly, pouring into the factories that ran 24/7 churning out ships and ammunition and war supplies; everyone doing their part for the war effort. What you don’t see are individuals, only a unified force. Each individual in that force had reason to complain; although separated by us from sixty years they are just l...

When you’re on the road and attempting to get from here to there, there are two ways to do it. You can get out a map and plot all the possible ways or you can input the data into a GPS unit and then let it direct you step by step. The difficulty of using a GPS and being directed turn by turn is that you don’t have the entire picture; all you have is the single command on the screen. When you’ve reached the end of that direction then you’ll be given the next. I like maps, cumbersome as they are with all that folding and refolding. I like sitting down with a map all spread out and charting out the path, seeing the distance between points and understanding the big picture. On our vacation we relied totally on the GPS and it was uncomfortably strange not to have the atlas in the pocket alongside the door. We had to travel from point to point, step by step, turn by turn the entire way. What if God spread out His map of our lives across the table of our understanding? What if we could see th...

Ah, vacation! Both an exhilarating and exhausting time; a superb opportunity to see inspiring and historic sites and an endless array of tacky trinkets! We are currently on vacation which means everything we need, or think we’ll need, is jammed into the car and hundreds of miles have already rolled under our wheels. We’ve finished one audio book, most of the snacks in the box, and, fortunately, seen not many of the two road trip undesirables: orange cones and red taillights! Of all the things I love about vacation one of my favorite things is the places with the complimentary breakfast! Let me explain, although we’re on the road I’m still the one responsible for eating arrangements. Apparently I’m the only one who is ever famished as the rest of the family will have a morning bowl of cereal and then go until four until they realize that they getting a little hungry! So for me it is the same responsibilities at home without the convenience of my own kitchen, or even knowing where ...