Flowers are still blooming in my backyard. The aster (I think it is an aromatic aster) is a nice surprise. It’s blooming in a pot of depleted wild flowers. The humming birds still visit the phlox and zinnias. My humming bird feeder attracts wasps as well as the humming birds.…
Jesus said to his disciples: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” Matthew 18:20 I grew up going to church with my family every Sunday. My parents were members of a Finnish Lutheran Church that was part of an association of Finnish churches.…
Next week our women’s Bible study will begin a study of the gospel of Luke (meeting in my backyard). So I am reading and meditating on the first chapter as Luke relates the unfolding of God’s plan to send Jesus. The angel Gabriel visits Zechariah to announce that God has…
Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! Psalm 47:1 The pandemic has made it difficult for us to worship at church. In the beginning weeks of the lockdown I listened to the hymn sing led by the Getty family on Facebook. The hymns refreshed…
A terrible accident took place in the hills of Switzerland. A child sustained a debilitating injury and one boy, Lucien, had provoked the accident. This is how the story begins in Patricia St. John’s book, Treasures of the Snow. This book for children was first published in 1948. As I continued…
This past week I skipped my morning Bible study a couple of days. Instead I read a few articles in the newspaper at the breakfast table. The tension of our current time put my nerves on edge. I felt irritable. I drank more coffee and spent too much time on…
Our library is open again! Yesterday I picked out a stack of books and a few DVDs. When I went to the desk to check out, the librarian commented on my stack. “Ah.looks like you are catching up on reading.” And I responded, “Actually I had a couple thicks books…
What comes to mind when you hear the word compromise? With the division that we see in politics, compromise doesn’t seem possible. In fact the divisiveness is so bitter that I have to limit my intake of news. I have been musing on this today. Certainly in marriage my husband…
My husband has offered to cut the cherry tree down. Several times. I was thrilled when the tree offered a bountiful harvest of cherries, sweet with a little tartness. Then came the year of brown rot and mold. We spent a week picking all the rotten fruit and cleaning up…
The Bible does not shrink from telling us the ugly side of human history. God’s word tells us the truth, and clearly states that God’s desire for us is good. We need to seek God and His ways in every aspect of our lives. “How you have helped him who has no…