How often do you not finish the books you’ve picked out and started with such diligent intentions? Though a friend tells me I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive that way, it happens more than I’d like to admit. Back when I homeschooled my girls, we learned one day that King Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199) owned a magnificent…
My two granddaughters were charmed by the quirky set of Russian dolls I put in their Christmas stockings when they visited Chile in December. Someday I’ll share with them the stories inside the story here. As did—surprisingly—a recent guest speaker at our church when he used a set of these dolls as an object lesson….
It’s HOT in our city of Coquimbo, Chile, during this final week of the Advent season. Still, the port’s most iconic landmark, the Third Millennium Cross, towers above the summer haze on the highest hill. A testament to the power of the Name, as I reminded a group of women at a year-end tea. During…
With all that’s going on in the world, we’re sometimes tempted to ask God: Whose side are You on? Does He love the Russians more than the Ukrainians, or the Ukrainians more than the Russians? Whatever, we’re sure He loves our own country, whichever that is, just a little more than everybody else’s. You know…
At bedtime in my family of daughters, I heard more “Read me a story” than “Tell me a story.” Now that they’re adults, the clamor has evolved to “Write me a story,” but the urge is still prompted by our storytelling gene. Recently, I attended three days of seminars in a fabulous online writers’ retreat….
Somehow I doubt if the psalmist David enjoyed many trouble-free years in his tumultuous life, but my husband reminded me a few weeks ago that Israel’s greatest king praised the provision and providence of God during the year. “You have crowned the year with your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance” (Ps. 65:11). Despite…
“I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry,” says the Apostle Paul (Phil. 4:12). That pretty much sums up my educational secrets: Abundance and hunger. Fullness and need. Prosperity, humility. We stuff our minds with new facts and ideas, and still we know, there’s always more to learn. A good story always…
Though I can’t confirm the science behind it, I do believe in a phenomenon termed the Butterfly Effect: The idea that small choices and changes can add up to destiny. Chaos Theory posits that “something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.” The tiniest…
