When You’ve Loved and Lost and You Need Another Miracle
MaryAnn Lammers smiled through her tears as Pastor gathered our attention during after-service coffee downstairs. “Today is MaryAnn’s 63rd wedding anniversary.” Only, MaryAnn’s love went to glory last year right before Christmas. Her heart still cries for her loss—63 years of walking as one and raising a house full of kids. When heart and soul are […]
Simply Grateful
We went to our “happy place”, as our youngest son calls it, for a family vacation from Saturday until Wednesday. Door County is the “thumb” of Wisconsin and what some refer to as “the Cape Cod of the Midwest”—a peninsula that juts out separating the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan. Highway 42 meanders […]
True Church
Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. James 2:17 Started in the fields yesterday, early afternoon, church on the farm. Ended up in the barn at 9:45. PM. Longest church I’ve ever witnessed. Don’t know if anyone here knew they were at church or in church, but I still say […]
Flowering Fields
As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s […]
Growing Up
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:18 Saturday was prom day for our youngest who turned 18 three weeks ago. I close my eyes and see him in that navy blue & white striped shirt he wore the day I held him for the first […]
Wait a Minute!
I worked out hard yesterday because soon I’ll have to shimmy into my shorts. Time to shred the winter belly I swear looks like it was inflated with a tire pump. So I started the DVD. Thought I might die, right there on the family room floor. There was this trainer on the screen, her […]
A Place For All God’s Creatures in His Special Upside-Down Economy
Our traditional Sabbath day family connection is a hike somewhere—anywhere on a trail through nature. It’s our ritual. Our comfort. The holy tie that binds. This past Sunday was one of those near-fall afternoons where temperatures slipped. Long sleeves and sweatshirts replaced the T-shirts of summer for the first time since June. Breezes blew stiff. […]
On Our Knees—Together, Part 2
We need to stand in the gap for the vulnerable and give them the best news of life—the gospel. This piece is the continuation of Wednesday’s post about the boy who threatened to kill our son, his friend, his biological father, and himself. He had a plan. He was serious. He was a desperate, hurting soul. […]
On Our Knees—Together
What you are about to read is true. Names are changed. Broken has no bounds. Broken affects us in a small farming community. Broken affects us all. But so does God’s grace—even more. God wants to love us in our broken. Will we let Him? Will we be part of the healing process? Or will we […]
Good Friday—Our Hope
Reflecting on what Jesus did on this day brings me to a still, quiet place of awe and gratefulness. I can’t fathom His suffering, His love, His utter determination to not leave us as broken orphans in a broken world. He chose to heal us with his life—and death. His choice cost him everything. We […]
Life Fires
Our first hikes together were on St. Petersburg sidewalks, my husband and I and our about-to-be-adopted children. We all held hands and meandered through a park where we skipped stones on the pond and all spoke with each other in Russian. We walked every day while waiting for our court date to become a legal family. […]
Beauty Marks
Give thanks. In all things. I’m spending much time these days confessing. I’m confessing that I haven’t been giving thanks—in all things—always. When I confess my failure, I am agreeing with God. And when I agree with God, change for the better can begin in me. That’s the whole point of confessing, I believe. Not to […]