This post appeared previously on February 28, 2021.
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” (Mt. 22:37)
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first proclamation to make February American Heart Month. With the ongoing, global COVID pandemic, paying attention to our heart health carries even more importance since the virus impacts the heart. Continue reading “The Heart: What Makes Us Who We Are”
And after the fire came a gentle whisper. (1 Kings 19:12)
A recent trip to JCPenney provided an unexpected opportunity to connect with a stranger. When I was checking out, I noticed that the employee was wearing a sparkly necklace in the shape of a paw print. I hesitated to say anything. My shyness still comes out sometimes in these situations, but I felt a nudge, then thought, Why not? What could it hurt? Almost everyone appreciates a compliment, right?
So I complimented her on the necklace, and she told me that she’s a dog mom. She mentioned that she doesn’t have any kids of her own, but her dog is her baby. I told her that I’m the same way—and then I showed her a picture of Charlie I pulled up on my phone. She, in turn, showed me a picture of her dog. We talked about how spoiled they are and laughed, knowing exactly what the other meant. Continue reading “Connecting with a Stranger”
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12)
Years ago, I attended a small Baptist church in my hometown. When I say “small,” I mean that we had about fifteen to twenty regular attendees. I was by far the youngest attendee—by about twenty years.
One year, the women of the church decided to hold a Valentine’s Day dinner. They fixed lasagna, salad, and breadsticks—yum.
But I wasn’t going to go. I thought it wasn’t for me because I was recently divorced, and honestly, the last thing I wanted to do was celebrate love.
Eventually, I changed my mind. I don’t remember who convinced me. Maybe it was my mom, or maybe it was my aunt, who played the piano at church and helped organize the dinner. Both of them knew I didn’t need to be sitting around by myself, moping the night away. Continue reading “The Valentine’s Day Dinner”
So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it . . . (Genesis 6:14–15)
As a writer and editor, I know that details matter. If a comma is out of place or missing, it can change the meaning of a sentence. When writing a scene for my cozy mystery, it’s important to include details so that the reader can “see” what’s happening in the story.
It can be tempting to think the details of our lives don’t matter to God—that he’s too busy running the universe and helping people with bigger problems than our own. Continue reading “Details Matter”
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! (1 Cor. 13:12 MSG)
In the last two years, it had become more and more difficult to wear my contact lenses, until finally I couldn’t wear them at all. I had purchased cheap glasses to wear at night, but I ended up wearing them all the time. Because my eyesight is how I make my living as an editor, I decided to invest in a nice pair of glasses with Neurolens. (This blog post isn’t a commercial for Neurolens, but I do want to mention how the lenses are designed to help realign your eyes, and they work well for people like me who are in front of a computer screen all day.)
A recent trip to the optometrist came with a surprise—I needed reading glasses. Why this came as a surprise, I don’t know. For several months prior, when I worked on editing projects, I would increase the size of the document on my screen so that I could catch all those pesky punctuation marks that were in the wrong place. The increase was gradual—first 110 percent, then 120, then 140. In fact, the funny thing is, things became blurry so gradually that it didn’t even register with me that it was happening. Continue reading “Looking through New Lenses”