When the receiving of love has strings attached, then is it really love? Love is a Gift With no Strings Attached. In many of the gardens I visit, they have garden hoses, and for the last few years many gardeners have been installing retractable hose reels. They are quite a […]
Spiritual Growth
81 posts
Your pain is legitimate, and second-place prayers reveal the need, but first-place prayers must always come first, so we pray a simple prayer. Simple sounds easy. Requiring little effort. First place. It’s where we put the best, second-place things go behind first-place things. There is an order—first place, then […]
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 […]
Ever found yourself in a dark place? A simple state of sadness can throw you in such a place. At least l experience that often. I used to be depressed, severely depressed, the kind of state that makes it hard for facial muscles to react to other people’s joyful interaction. […]
We want God to answer our prayer our way, but there is a larger story going on, so we wait to see the way God answers prayer. Most weekends, when my children were young, I made buns for lunch. First, I would make the bread dough in a breadmaker, then […]
We can get angry to the point where we want to curse the day we were born, but being held in our anger allows us to go through and not around the pain. It was about time they got angry. As the words vomited at me, through me, and around […]
Every Saint Has a Past. Every Sinner Has a Future. So what choices of forgiven acceptance are you making in the moment of the now? The source of the phrase ‘Every Saint Has a Past Every Sinner Has a Future’ comes from Oscar Wilde’s play A Woman of No Importance. […]
So many good things go unnoticed, but when we learn to take in the good and let it nourish, then our whole direction of a life can change. My neighbors have some small children. Yesterday, while walking in the garden, one of the little boys ran up to me to […]
There is a comfort zone in the familiar, but there is a calling to step out of the boat and find a little something to stand on. There’s always a call to step out of the boat. The other day I was cleaning some items off a pinboard and came […]
We are happy to accept good from God, but what about trouble? There is something deeper available when we center on clinging to God. As a gardener, I work in all kinds of weather. Rain, sun, and wind – both light and strong. In the extremes, I complain. The furnace […]