Never devalue the lessons learned from your past.  They don’t define you, but they certainly inform you.  The twin Benham entrepreneurs left professional baseball to be a salesman on a phone in a cubicle and a school janitor, hardly the professions they dreamed of after college and pro ball.  But they credit their success to their work ethic, giving any task their best, including plunging toilets. Work (unless God forbids it) is worthy.  Period.  Being diligent, honest, industrious will bring spiritual rewards.  I Thessalonians 4: 11.  We are not guaranteed l ..read more

I recently read a professor’s words.  “You can talk to God whenever you want.  You just can’t expect an answer.” I beg to differ. Isaiah 59:1. “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.”  He listens.  He speaks to us through our ears of faith.  Hebrews 11 tells of people of great faith who acted knowing that God had heard their prayers.  But they did not see His answers, His results in their lifetime. If we expect an immediate answer that fits our wish, we might be deafened by His silence. If we delight in Him, He rewards u ..read more

What old news matters to you?  1798 Dept of Navy forms,  1904 ice cream cone makes its debut, 1952 Mr. Potato Head is 1st toy advertised on television. With a grandson in the navy, that news is interesting. He is a part, not just of the military, but tradition.  The ice cream cone, a neutral in my life.  Mr. Potato Head a nuisance my children enjoyed, but parts in shag carpeting routinely destroyed my vacuum. How does God see the news of today?  As I try to imagine his perspective, it changes my focus for today.  Time spent, dollars spent, prayer focus and much mo ..read more

We imagine Heaven.  My husband in his terrible illness repeated, “Heaven will be perfect.”  Yes, we’ll be drawn to Jesus face first. Face to face in heaven How long we will gaze will not matter, as heaven is forever.  No ticking clock.  Yes, I’m curious about others and would like to hear my husband sing there.  An amazing baritone here, what will he sound like in heaven?  I have another goal.  I want to seek out every widow in Scripture named, unnamed, famous, infamous, and just sit at their feet and listen.  I want to hear their story in THEIR voice.&n ..read more

I live on a hill.  At the bottom of my drive, the road winds around a pond and beyond a grove of trees.  It is my custom, when folks leave my home to watch them from my driveway until they are out of sight.  My friend, Sandy, related that to my farm-girl childhood.  That’s what farm folks did. True.  Four little girls climbed up the ‘buying post’ and watched until any friend or relative was out of sight.  I still do.  I’ve watched the car transporting one son to the Marines.  I’ve watched grandsons driving with new licenses.  Some ‘watches’ are too ..read more

We are image bearers of God.  He says so in Genesis 1: 27.  Perhaps we feel more like His image bearers on days we are healthy, productive, and successful.  But many days are not like that.  On the day you lose your job, on the day you bury someone you love, on the day your world turns upside down and does a 360, you are still an image bearer of God.  Naomi, losing her husband and her sons, on her down days, was still such an image bearer that Ruth, her daughter in law decided she wanted the God that Naomi trusted.  Tenacious faith in tough times speaks volumes. O ..read more

Has a face, an expression burrowed into your mind?  I remember a woman dancing past me at our graduation of tailors one year ago, her look of delight, exuberance, her shoulders erect. Before this widow didn’t walk with confidence, her future uncertain in her village.  Now she has a skill and her own sewing machine.  I see her glowing face and wonder, ‘How is she doing today?’ Is she making school uniforms, mending, bartering her skill for food?  Do her children and other dependents (most care for other relatives’ children as well) eat at least one healthy meal a day?  ..read more

We ate strange things on the farm–not because we preferred them, but because we could only eat what we had.  Fried green tomatoes were OK, green grape pie, not so much.  Vinegar pie?  You just could not pretend it was lemon pie. I recently sampled yet another new strange food, fried pickles.  Why take a tasty, chilled crisp flavorful cucumber and fry it?  Because people like to try new things. If you are searching for something different in your life, pick up a Bible and start reading.  Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who ..read more

How are happy couples different?  Many experts indicate that they share rituals.  They have that set aside early morning hour, or reconnect time at the end of the day, and its theirs.  Or it’s a ritual of making breakfast together.  Or an outside walk, even a short one.  It’s not the nature of the event.  It’s their shared routine, their way of saying we are important to each other, and here’s evidence in action. I understand busy families.  Being married to a traveling broadcaster, raising children, being an employed mom, it’s easy for those set aside moment ..read more

Communication has changed.  Texting has changed our spelling from whole words correctly spelled to abbreviations everybody knows. BTW by the way, number 4 for four, LOL lots of laughs.  It’s hard after texting to write normally.  And that may change.  I’m thankful that God communicates with us in whatever manner gets our attention.  I’m collecting a stack of family Bibles used by my relatives past, certainly quickly becoming obsolete as we more easily read Scripture on our iPhones.  Yet He speaks in other ways: directing circumstances to show us His hand.  Wi ..read more