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Soul Days
I’ve always loved Fall. I love how the leaves turn all kinds of brilliant, especially the crimson and fire orange ones that I wish could linger longer than the Kansas wind. On the rare calm days, right after the leaves have just turned, it’s hard for me not to just stare and inhale the crispness of the air. There is simplistic beauty in changing seasons. Most days, especially as of late, my days have been brimming with a laundry list of to-do’s. There has been loud, lived-out noise in the chaos of a constant stream of life. Most of it all wonderful things I welcome. Such as racing my sweet…
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The White House
Nearly three years ago I received a random e-mail, “What do you think?” In the e-mail was a picture attached of a little white house with black shutters and a beautiful large tree in the front yard. The e-mail was from dad. Usually dad’s e-mails were short and to the point. This one, while short, was so exciting, special even. You see, for years my dad had lived adrift. My parents didn’t have much and they lived from one apartment complex or facility to another. My dad even spent the sum of a year living at a Rescue Mission shortly before my mother passed. He was broke and broken. When…
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Distraction
It’s been a struggle to stay focused. Opportunity for distraction, at least for the past two to three weeks, have come in beckoning waves. Waves that feel inescapable. Have you ever stood near the beach, just a venture’s jaunt from it’s edge in the water? There’s that wonderful cool feeling of the water and the rhythmic way the waves lap sand back and forth in between your toes that can erase worry away better than any doctor’s prescription. Couple that with the sound and sight of an ocean bigger and larger than your eye can see and you have a recipe for respite. Until the random rogue wave hits with…
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Rain
Today it’s raining. I managed to score a spot at a window table in my favorite bookstore. The windows are tall, really tall. I love that. I love to be able to see a floor to ceiling view. It helps me feel like I am outside yet I can remain comfortably inside, especially on a rainy and stormy morning such as this. There is a peace to watching rain fall and life happen all around you. From where I sit there is a tree directly inline of my view and a beautiful little grassy area where critters like to camp. Not a lot of people venture out in rain and…
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It Will Be Okay. . .
Could it be possible that pain is simply planting season for God?
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It Is Well
Outside snow is finally beginning to fall. It’s the middle of December but amazingly for most of the week it’s been warm enough to crack windows open and break out short sleeves. Not so today. Today it snows. Today I sit curled up with a hot cup of coffee, a roaring fire, a sleeping little boy and an open Bible. My Bible has not been open much these days. There are all the normal excuses. “Too busy” is my default in December. There is shopping to finish, packages to wrap, food to make, food to eat, places to go and people to see. Outside, along with the snow, there is…
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Rest Should Be More Than a Four-Letter Word
We all wear a lot of hats in any given day. I know I certainly do. Those hats at times can make life feel akin to an endless marathon, with some miles easier to run than others. Some miles feel like you could coast on air and others like the very next step could kill you. At all times there is the awareness of pleasure and pain, mountaintop highs and valley lows. Most of life is lived in the in-between. It is in the running lately that I have had to learn to stop for a bit, to pace myself, to even stop running long enough to process. My hats…
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Do You Know Who, or Rather Whose, You Are?
Both you and I were intentionally created. We don’t meaninglessly exist one moment and cease to exist the next. We were carefully chosen and purposefully knit together with more love and intention than you and I can possibly even begin to wrap our minds around. We are individually unique, uniquely called, and called to proclaim Him who claimed us. We are NOT designed to live individually independent of each other or of God. We are NOT to be mini-gods. Our culture’s foundation rests on the premise that “self” matters more than anything or anyone. Not only is it a multimillion dollar market but an entrenched and deepening mindset, whether we…
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Why Back-Story Should Matter to the Believer
Over the past couple of weeks this video has gone viral. It portrays the surprise reunion of ex-lovers separated over the span of 30 years. The title alone is alluring. In watching the video I was honestly so moved by the raw emotion, the obvious display of recognition, connection and care these two individuals had for each other that I was seconds away from joining in on the viral share. The video it’s self just focuses on a shared moment. No back-story is given, barely even mention to the individual’s names. Innocent: a story to marvel and celebrate, right? But what was the story? What precipitated the moment gone-viral? Who…
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The Measure of a Moment
So much happens in a moment. In one moment a person is born and in the blink of an eye another is gone. There are moments that build up, others that tear down. Moments of strength, moments of weakness. There are times of plenty and times of known scarcity. Seasons of joy, seasons of pain. Days of sun and days full of rain. There are frigid cold days and others brimming with the sun’s warmth. Moments that just happen and others that don’t, moments of adjustment and moments of appointment. Even seasons of adversity seem to be appointed by God himself. (Hebrews 12:6) There are times to put the peddle…
