Up the Sunbeam

-- Please bear with the length of this post--I promise you won't be sorry if you read to the end!! This is the TRUE story of God at work in ways I have never seen before even though I always knew He could! NEVER BE AFRAID TO TRUST GOD OR TO PRAY YOUR HEART OUT TO HIM!!! NEVER!!! After stuffing ourselves on the 4th of July feast Hero Husband made that featured both fried and BBQ chicken with all the fixin's, Drummer Boy, She So Sweet, and I headed over to our favorite spot to watch one of the many fireworks displays in our area. (Hero Husband loves Independence Day, but prefers to relax at home and let us have our firework fun.) We parked strategically to have an easy getaway afterward, gathered our chairs and my camera gear and had a pleasant walk to where we staked out our claim. Caution tape marked the line between the safe zone and the danger zone, and we set up our chairs about 40 yards deep in the safe zone. I tinkered awhile with camera settings, absent-min...

-- When you become a mother (or a father), you can never anticipate all that you are saying yes to.  If you're wise you'll let the prayers fall from your lips like raindrops. Three times life has blossomed within, twice I have delivered beautiful, healthy babies into the world.  Three times I have known the rending of my heart to make room for the flood of love it would have to hold as a new life came to be; one of those times I had to release that too-brief little life to heaven in the sorrow of an early miscarriage , and twice I have been blessed to watch those new lives grow into the amazing children God chose me to mother. I was a few months pregnant with She So Sweet the first time I heard the song "Breath of Heaven" by Amy Grant.  I was nervous in those early months, especially when complications came that felt like a repeat of the miscarriage.  As I prepared to go home from a scary trip to the ER, relieved to get good news but still shaken, the male n...

-- The sky directly above me was dark and close with low, dense clouds. Across the valley, visible in peek-a-boo splendor, the sunrise was happening above and beyond the thick bank of clouds. You see, the sun rises in flaming beams of gilded glory even when our view is obscured by an ocean of clouds--it is always warm, always beautiful, always radiant.  "Then he gave them an illustration to show that they must always pray and never lose heart." Luke 18:1 PHILLIPS Dr. Luke tells his readers at the beginning of this chapter exactly the principle Jesus was illustrating before he relates the parable Jesus told. Nice of him, don't you think? This time at least, there is no treasure hunt for a truth veiled in a  cryptic   story we may or may not fully understand--I love that! This was a parable about an unjust judge who, though reluctant and uncooperative at first, was ultimately persuaded to give justice to a woman because of her persistence in pleading her ...

When I was too little to know any better, my mother tells of her complete mortification when I would make loud slurping sounds as the tray of communion cups was passed in our little church. The sight of all those little me-sized cups of grape juice going by just out of reach was all I needed to notice how thirsty I was. Since I didn't have the words, I found another way to let it be known that I wanted something to drink. So it was, just about a month ago now, when Laura Boggess wrote about a new book she loved and was offering as a giveaway. As I followed her instructions to be entered, I found myself uncharacteristically REALLY hoping I would win. I never win these things, and don't often enter or think too much about them. There was something about the sight of that elegant cover, and the chance to see behind the scenes of L. L. Barkat's creativity that was like the tiny cups of juice that tempted that long-ago thirsty baby. I don't think I actually slurped, but ...