Life can go on and on from day to day, but when we stop to notice little moments of delight, something profound can begin to grow—hope, joy, and thankfulness. Bible stories come alive. For me, there is nothing quite like sinking my teeth into a perfectly ripe Black Doris plum […]
hope
60 posts
The only way there is through. To reap a joy, we sow a tear, but it’s work, hard work, so we don’t travel alone. We journey with safe others. I knew there had to be an ocean of loss behind the lifestyle mask they were wearing. For all the stories […]
There is a grain or a pattern to our thinking that needs to change, but we are stuck, so God gently comes against the grain and changes it from the inside out. It goes against the grain of self-protection to let someone in, especially when we have been hurt. But […]
Life can wear us down, and we question if we are worthy of love. But we need to look to a deeper story going on than feelings of the present. It was gone. Something had gone from them. And they felt it. No longer cared about their appearance, their diet, […]
It was my shame, but it wasn’t to be carried alone. I had a friend who knew it all, and God entered in and healed the pain. I was being laughed at. I was only a seven-year-old, but for the first time, I felt the cold icy winds of being […]
I need a nest that I can call home. Actually, digging down a little further, I need a grouping of relationships that know me, love me, and have compassion and kindness when I get things wrong. The other day I was pruning a vine and there high above my head […]
When you’re in a dark hole, it can feel like there is a loss of hope, but you can dig yourself out with some wisdom and encouragement. It was a hole that I had fallen into. I was in a deep dark hole where the sun didn’t seem to reach. […]
Can anything good come out of that time, place, or person? Only if we take a risk and explore. We are invited to ‘come and see.’ I was raised on a farm near a small town called Wellsford. In fact, my ancestors settled there in the 1860s, migrating from England. […]
Sometimes we can find ourselves stuck in a dark hole and feel like we are going down, but there is hope when we open ourselves to the connection and support from others. One property I work on as a gardener is a small farm, and I get to use a […]
Words have power. Self-deprecation is to pray against the self, but we can learn to pray for the self and so develop healthier thinking patterns. It was the words at the end of his sentence that caught my attention. ‘I’m so stupid; I always do things like that’. You learn […]