I am a great lover of Renaissance art. As a teacher, this time period was one of my favorites to cover in my upper-level elective class. I focused almost exclusively on 44 pieces I had chosen to weave the tale of this time line through. Continue reading Sculpting in the Storm
Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, (Colossians 3:23).
I am hard pressed to find a better example on earth, during my lifetime, of someone living out this scripture more than my father. Continue reading A Great Physician
One night, we were awakened by the ringing of the telephone. My husband, Darryl, got up to answer it in the living room. I was not fully awake, but I was very much aware that it was deep in the night. Phone calls this late are never good news. I lay there struggling with the reality of that and trying to pretend that maybe the phone hadn’t rang, or somehow it would just be a wrong number, or some other benign happening. Continue reading What a Relief!
I was at the store just a couple of days ago, and a lady in the aisle next to me was talking on her cell phone. She was talking to a man. How do I know that? Well…she was using the speaker phone feature. Now, I’m not an eaves dropper by nature, but she was talking on speaker phone in a public place. It wasn’t exactly a private conversation. Continue reading Hell is Always Open
My husband and I went on a trip to Colorado last fall. This was my first visit to that state, outside of the Denver airport. I was excited to see the changes in topography as we traveled along. We left the lush, green hills and clear, sparkling rivers of southwest Missouri, discovered the endless beauty in the flat plains of Kansas, and slowly crept up into the high plains of eastern Colorado where I spotted the first antelope I had ever seen in the wild. Continue reading The Balance of Nature
Quite possibly the best thing my oldest daughter, Dayton, has ever sent me is this picture of a domestic cat wearing a lion’s mane. Yeah…I’m easy to please. But just look at him there – wearing that mane like it’s just what he’s supposed to do. His eyes flash with confidence. He’s not the least bit unsettled. He’s not confused about who he is – there’s no identity crisis here. He’s a cat, and he knows it. He also knows he hails from the same biological family as the King of the Jungle. And so he dons the synthetic mane with pride and conviction of who he is on the inside. Continue reading The Lion Inside
The year my mother and brother died, we decided to have a big ole family Christmas at my parents’ house. Everyone would be there from my mom’s side of the family. We even decided to draw names and exchange gifts. My mom and brother had only died 23 days apart from each other. It started in October, so we were all still very raw and pretty much going through life like zombies. Continue reading Life is Like a Chocolate Pie
On a recent trip to my local grocery store, I spent way too much time trying to find the fly swatters. It is summer, and a few of those pesky little critters found their way into my house. I finally stopped to ask a gentleman employed by the store if he knew where I could find a fly swatter.
He turned to me and asked, “A what?”
“A fly swatter,” I replied.
Now, the gentleman crept a few steps closer to me, and inquired again, “A what?”
I thought maybe the man was slightly hard of hearing, so I answered again, “A fly swatter”. This time I could see on his face that it wasn’t that he couldn’t hear me…he couldn’t understand me. Very quickly I added, “Fly swatter…F. L. Y. swatter”.
Touchdown! I realized the gentleman finally knew what I was saying.
“Oh…a fly swatter! With your accent, I couldn’t understand what you were saying,” he proceeded to explain as he led me to the item. Continue reading Sometimes You Feel Like the Fly – Sometimes You Feel Like the Swatter
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