One of the blessings I’m experiencing in my life right now is something we’ve encouraged the folks in our church to become involved with: Circles. The idea behind Circles is that you find two other people you know or perhaps that you’d like to know, and invite them to join you on a regular basis,…
A while back, I went through a ‘remembering box’ of stuff my mom had saved from when I was little; things she collected during my growing-up years. I found a letter she had saved that I had written as a school assignment. The letter was never sent. It was just an exercise, an assignment in…
A couple of years ago, we did some remodeling at our house. In particular, we changed the way one of the bedrooms was configured a bit, changing the door, adding bookshelves. We wanted to use the room not only as an occasional guest bedroom, but also as an office, and doing so meant we had…
Last Sunday after church, as I sat watching folks casually greet one another, a family I knew well approached me and said, “We see that you’re going to give the invocation at the County Board of Supervisors meeting this week. We’re so glad you’re going to do that.” It will be so great to have…
Probably most followers of Jesus have had a similar experience to the one I had this morning, as I sat drinking my early morning coffee, reading my bible. I do that every morning. And often, as I read, a verse or a truth that I have read many times before causes me to pause, stop,…
We don’t watch much television at our house. I will confess that I love baseball, and I’m a St. Louis Cardinals fan, so during the spring, summer, and fall, when the Card’s are playing, I watch most of their games. And, I like basketball, too. Watching the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry play basketball…
I’ve been involved in church music all my life. I grew up I watching my mom and dad sing in a gospel quartet in church. I can still recall hot summer Sunday nights when my brother, my sister and I were expected to sit attentively on hard, wooden church pews. There was no air conditioning…
Louis L’Amour said, “Some say opportunity knocks only once, but that’s not true. Opportunity knocks all the time. But you have to be ready for it ….” My wife and I ate some incredible clam chowder the other night at a chowder house we like to visit. It’s not a fancy looking place; more like…
In the last seven days, I’ve had several conversations and interactions with some really great people who were discouraged. There was the guy who just learned his cancer is back, and this time it doesn’t look like it’s going to go away. Worried about his family. Discouraged about his cancer. I looked into the face…
Not often —but sometimes — we put a jigsaw puzzle together at my house. We usually choose the puzzle based on the picture on the box. Maybe it’s a puzzle of a flower garden, or a mountain scene. Once, we had a puzzle of a bunch of jelly beans scattered over a table, and some…