Well, has your December calendar worn you out yet? If you’re coming into Christmas tired of soul, here’s a word of encouragement that I wrote a few years ago. It just needed some dusting off, and I think the message still fits. Merry Christmas to you, dear friend. Merry Christmas. I like a thick ream of blank, white copy paper… Read More
When Your People Need You But You Got Nothin’
It was my very first summer to mow the lawn, about a decade ago. When I was growing up that was a boy job, so I had never even been asked to mow. But the grass was kicking up Matt’s allergies and asthma so bad that I suggested I give it a go. Come to find out, I loved mowing…. Read More
For The Tired, Not-Gonna-Make-It People
He was an elderly Black man, and we always inwardly celebrated when it was his turn to lead the congregation of Miller Heights Baptist Church in corporate prayer. We called him Brother Charlie. Dear Lord, he prayed. Thank you for shakin’ my feeble body and wakin’ me up this mornin’. With Texas accent added to sincerity of heart, he always… Read More
People of Weakness and their Happy Ending
All you have to do is talk to a college student the week before Thanksgiving holiday, to know living is impossible. All the tasks we need to accomplish are more than a person can do. Or ask someone how he’s doing, with sincerity of heart that really begs an answer, and get the honest response that things are hard. And… Read More
This Kind of Strength for You Today
So I’m making dinner and I say, Four more minutes, guys. But you said nine minutes five minutes ago, my husband said. Silence from the kitchen. Um, oh, sorry, I said. Laughter from the living room. Give me a spelling bee any day over any kind of math problem. Which makes it ironic that I love addition when it comes… Read More
When Rest Isn’t Yet
I knew I was in trouble yesterday about 10 minutes into class. Students are weather, and I could see they were a low pressure system. Low: An area where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. They looked like I felt, except I get a paycheck for being enthusiastic about working on Spanish every day. We’re all… Read More
If You Need Help
The nice Costco man looked at me and said, Those 8-foot kayak boxes aren’t going to fit in this 4-foot truck bed. But I had already paid for the kayaks, and they don’t hold things for you at Costco. He kindly told me that they would hold onto them if I could come back with a bigger truck in the… Read More
My Little Secret on Being a Rock
In high school I worked really hard to do pretty well. My report card (back in the days when it was actually a card someone wrote on with a pen) had a few A’s, always some B’s, and an occasional C in math or science or both. But I hung out with the smart kids. At graduation, it was my… Read More
How to Insert Steel Rods into a Friend’s Jell-O Legs
About a half an hour from my mom’s house I thought I was going to be ill. Stomach knotted, I wondered how I could walk my own grief to the front door and face the mirrored grief of my mother. The next several days presented some of the most difficult challenges I have ever faced. I kept thinking, How can… Read More
Facing An Impossible And Overwhelming Kind of Day?
My son has been playing a city-building game on his iPod. He was bragging last night that he used dynamite to blow a hole in the ground, and then he filled the entire base of the city with trampolines. (I think this child needs more chores to do.) He proudly showed me how he was building the walls of his… Read More