She disappeared into a little room off the kitchen and returned with a plastic shopping bag stretched tight under the weight of a payload that was nearly falling out. She extended her hand and offered me the bag. One of the biggest zucchini I had ever seen swung heavily between us. I looked into her eyes and knew I had but one choice…
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April and May will be a time of great adventures in speaking! I’ll be traveling up and down Illinois and crossing the Mississippi a few times to visit Iowa and Missouri. And I’m excited to meet LOTS of people along the way!
I’ve started a free email newsletter call LIVING FRAGRANCE that focuses on the speaking side of my life. Each issue will be full of fresh flowers from my garden as well as a short devotion, a few of my favorite Internet resources, notes about recent speaking adventures and a list of upcoming speaking events!
If you would like to subscribe to LIVING FRAGRANCE, just click HERE.
A subscription page will open in a new window. See you there!
The day I’ve looked forward to for a long, long time is less than a week away!
No, it’s not my wedding day. I ran heart-racing, head-on into the waves of marital bliss years ago. But that exhilarating dance—of peace and excitement twirling around in me—is back! Throw in a little game of leap-frog between faith and doubt every twenty-four hours or so and…you get the picture.
I keep dreaming of how everything will go at my first speaking engagement! It’s not really my first; I’ve been at it for a while now. But this is my first Christian event for women! For so long, I have looked forward to speaking into the lives of women in the same tender, transparent and hope-filled way that so many Christian speakers have spoken into mine. Good words, wonderful words—God has used them to challenge me, change me, comfort me, and move me—all to one end: To know Him, to love him and to live in Him more, and more, and more.
It’s my turn now—and I can hardly wait!
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Event:“The Radiant Christian Woman”Friday, Sept. 11th 6:30 to 8:30 pm
at Scotland Trinity Presbyterian Church
Macomb, IL ~ click on link for details!
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I have a friend named Jenny who is a continual source of inspiration. She’s someone you would have to meet to truly understand what she’s really like. I don’t think that there’s a writer on earth who could capture her incredible personality and her indomitable spirit. She’s funny, mischievous, optimistic, determined, and loving–yes, most of all loving. I adore her and I love to see her smile: it’s a million dollar smile that lights up her face and spells out “laughter and joy” across a big, blue sky!
Jenny was born with a whole bagful of challenges; she was placed into her parents’ arms, carrying disabilities with mysterious-sounding names. I could go on to explain them, but what is there to gain. While Jenny’s disabilities are with her still: they do not define her. Jenny has written a life story that focuses more on the “I can’s”, than the “I cannot’s”.
Someday I want to write an article about Jenny. I want somehow to create a beautiful expression that conveys her spirit for living. For now let me just tell you some special things about my very lovely, much cherished friend.
Jenny has this incredible quality of yielding. She is like gentle, sparkling water…clear and pure; the kind in which, sunlight dances! While you see the stones and sticks that the water runs over and through, they fade away as you’re captivated by the sheer loveliness of the free-flowing, bright, clear water. Jenny’s life flows freely. Sometimes it dances. Sometimes it tumbles–over and through and around all the rocks and rubble she has known in her life.
There I sat, cross-legged with goose-pimples so stiff you could have grated cabbage off of them! Adults just come up with one idea after another to torture kids. Like this whole circus. Who in the world thought it was a … Continue reading
The view out my window is desolate today, save for the few small patches of used-up snow…strewn here and there like old worn-out socks, dropped by a woman wandering aimlessly in search of a sunny day…to hang her laundry against a bright, blue sky. Poor little socks of snow, peppered with bits of grit and grime. They’ve exchanged their pristine, fresh-bleached wonder for the drab garb of the days between winter and spring. And that scruffy, old lawn… it gave up long, long ago. Wearied, under the weight of snow and ice, fending off the bitter cold…beaten down, leached of color and and thirsting for what? It just doesn’t know. In these days, even the sky lacks the will to draw back the silvery, gray curtain which hangs between the winter-weary and the warmth of sun. Yet, here I perch, fingers pressed against a cold window pane.
It is coming. I know it. I sensed it today. Sifting softly, so faintly through my windows and walls. A sweet breathy whisper drew me here to the sill…leaning forward…looking outward…to say a farewell. Farewell weathered garden, littered with leaves. Good-bye to short days and to long winter eves. I’m leaning forward, looking on up ahead, watching eagerly, oh so eagerly, for Spring.
‘So glad that colorful days follow close on the heels of this period between winter and spring…
“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13,14 [NIV]
