life. faithful.

I don't usually post anything on Sunday, but this is a last minute reminder I should have posted much sooner. I let it slip my mind, though, so I wanted to make sure I invited you all t to join me this summer. No, I'm not taking us all to a beach house somewhere (I wish I could!) or suggesting we get together around a campfire in my parents' field (although that would be fun, too). This is actually much easier to arrange :) A friend of mine was thinking about how easy it is to get busy in the summer and let things slide, sometimes without even realizing it's happening. One of those things is devotionals, so Jill decided to do something about it. She invited some of us to join with her in providing daily Bible reading and devotionals, delivered straight to your inbox. Looking at what all is on the lineup, I'm pretty sure you won't get bored. There's going to be a little bit of everything, really, with everything from a study of Mark to the life of

"Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake." ~E.L. Doctorow "What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God." ~Elanor Powell "This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else." ~Annie Dillard, THE WRITING LIFE A student was sent to talk to my dad a while back. She had said she wanted to be a writer, so the high school counselor told her to talk to Pop. After all, since I had written a book surely he could tell her all she needed to know about how I had done it. She asked him how I became a writer, in answer to which I'm pretty sure he laughed. He told her that I had been writing and telling stories since I was little (I can still remember taking from the time I came home until dinner was finished one

Life is busy--sometimes, there's no way around it. We all have responsibilities and obligations that keep us moving full steam ahead. Other times, though, we choose to be busy because we know that if we slow down we'll have too much time to think; we keep moving forward because we just don't want to look back. I've never been fond of falling apart. For those who know me, that's probably putting it a bit mildly, huh? I pride myself on being independent, able to handle things on my own. "I can do it myself!" was probably the first full sentence in my vocabulary. I guess it's a control thing. The problem is, in Christ we are called to brokenness. "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death , and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Philippians 3:10 & 11 "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for

I have a confession to make: when it comes to my kids, I'm a hypocrite. That may sound a bit harsh, but it's true. Like parents from all over the world, I strive to raise my kids to follow God. I want them to know Him deeply, to realize just how amazing it is that the Creator of the Universe chose them --that He loves them. I want them to walk closely to Him and to have the peace that passes all understanding, to realize that their joy is not defined by their circumstances. The thing is, lately I've let my circumstances steal my joy. It didn't happen all at once, but there's no denying that my once ever-present optimism and joie de vivre have faded these last few years. Yes, the circumstances in my life have been hard. If you read through some old posts you can see that it's been a hard decade, one I never could have imagined. I can't change what all has happened, even if I wanted to--life's funny that way. The thing is, I can change how