I LAY IN BED WIDE awake and gazed at the clock. 1:00 a.m. It was still hours away from my 5:00 a.m. alarm. I grabbed my cell phone, wondering if I’d received any late-night texts or emails. I scrolled social media and read the news. Before I knew it,

In my editorial work, I read quite a few devotions! One of the things I’ve noticed recently is how often the theme of busyness comes up—the tendency of people to take on more and more work and volunteer tasks, more family commitments, until their cal

MY COMPUTER IS FIVE YEARS old—which in computer years is about ninety (one human year is equal to eighteen computer years). It has been limping along. It takes ages to turn on. The lag time for connecting to the internet is unimpressive. It’s constan

RECENTLY, I HAD TO CUT a piece of paper in half and didn’t have any scissors. A friend taught me to fold the paper, wet the crease, pull the ends, and the paper would tear perfectly on the fold. It seems that wherever paper is dampened, it weakens. W

WHEN I LOOKED UP THE origin of Labor Day, I found that there’s a controversy over who first proposed the idea in 1882: either carpenter Peter McGuire or machinist Matthew Maguire. What are the odds that a single letter differentiates them—McGuire vs.

“WERE YOU SINGING?” MY HUSBAND, Jeff, asked me as I straggled into the kitchen early one morning. I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I don’t talk, much less sing, before my coffee, but he insisted. “Something about joy in the house of the

ONE OF THE FAVORITE GAMES my elementary-school-aged children like to play with their niece, my three-year-old granddaughter, Amelia, is hide-and-seek. It’s darling when Amelia is hiding and the seekers, my children, walk close to her. She starts to g

DOES ANYBODY REALLY COUNT SHEEP to fall asleep? Though I’ve never done that, the Lord has given me another way to shut down my busy, overactive mind so sleep can come—alphabetical acrostic poems. It’s nothing new. Some authors of the Bible must have

I ROAMED ALONG THE NARROW streets and brick sidewalks of Charleston, admiring ivy-covered homes from an earlier century. I stopped in front of a tiny white house with a curious entrance. The arched gray door wasn’t much taller than I. It had a metal

I OFTEN CHAT WITH A coworker about what’s going on in our lives. One morning, a friend shared with me that his brother was going through some health and personal struggles. I asked his brother’s name and he told me it was Paul. “OK,” I said. “I’ll be

I WAS WHAt WAS KNOWN as a strong-willed child. I wanted things my own way. I was always in trouble and rarely understood why. I just couldn’t make sense of the world. Sometimes I knew what I was doing was wrong and deserved to be punished, but often

MY MIDDLE SON, WILL, HAS strong hands just like my husband, Scott. Scott loves that connection with Will. My oldest son, Jack, and my youngest son, Addison, have soft hands like mine. I love that their hands come from my side of the family. However,

IN PREPARING TO FACILITATE a corporate training course on emotional intelligence, I was surprised by the difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy is staying where I am and acknowledging from a distance that someone else’s situation is bad. E

I STARED AT THE BRACELET I’d crafted. Loose enough to dangle without catching on things, its leaf-shaped green and blue beads made me smile. Like most of the projects I do, this one wasn’t perfect. Still, it reflected my personality in a whimsical wa

ONE MORNING, I WATCHED AN avalanche of clouds crawl over the mountains. A few minutes later, I was in the midst of an outrageous storm. The clouds consumed the blue sky, and a dense, dark fog settled in. The wind whipped up to 91 miles per hour. Shee

AN ART GALLERY IS ALWAYS carefully planned. What will patrons see first? Last? What atmosphere will each room or alcove evoke? The pop-up artists gallery our church hosted recently was as well planned as any created by a professional curator. The fir

AFTER PACKING OUR LUNCH, MY husband and I drove to one of our favorite parks to picnic. A rustic table welcomed us to rest under a canopy of tall firs. The scent of cedar mixed with loamy soil teased our senses. Birds flitted from tree to tree, and a

AFTER FINISHING A BOOK ABOUT a woman’s true story, I sank my head into my pillow and sobbed. I recalled similar hurtful experiences like those she’d described. After calming down, I took her advice. I walked to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and

IT’S MOVING DAY FOR MY daughter. She had made arrangements with a company that provides a truck and movers. Last night, a representative called her to say that due to labor issues, they couldn’t do the job. With some scrambling, she arranged to hire

DURING MY LAST YEAR OF junior high, I took a career personality test. As I tallied the results, I discovered my talents and interests pointed toward a vocation in education. Seeing this, my home economics teacher allowed me to visit the third-grade c

THE BEST PART ABOUT MY daily commute is that it brings me past NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. At the entrance, twin T-38 Talon jets point toward the clouds as if they’re about to launch into the heavens with the next crew of astronauts in tr

SITTING IN CHURCH, I BROWSED the bulletin. A list of opportunities called out for volunteers. Sing in choir? Usher? Decorate the church? Teach Sunday school? Lead a small group? My pulse quickened. I wanted to do it all. Then a wave of pain reminded

I’VE WORKED FROM HOME FOR a lot of years, but I frequently take my at-home office on the road to fit it in among mom responsibilities and other errands. A surprising number of tasks can be done in the car. Drive time is prime time to accomplish “fill

AFTER THE PASTOR FINISHED HIS sermon, he explained why the sanctuary walls were dotted with pink sticky notes. Each note contained one of fifteen different words to pray for our church. He invited us to take one off the wall. My husband slipped out o

“ARE YOU SEEING ANYONE SPECIAL?” a well-meaning friend asked. The ink was barely dry on my divorce papers when people started inquiring about my dating status. I’d been with my husband for twenty years, fresh on the heels of becoming a Christian. I’d

THIS FALL, OUR SECOND SON, Will, left home for college. He was ready to fly. We made the trek from Idaho to Southern California in two days. I was excited for Will, for his future, and for all that Jesus had waiting for him. I kept reminding myself o

FOR MONTHS, I DROVE BY a house while the owner built a shed on his front lawn. I’d never seen a small project take so long, nor a utility building so equipped and beautifully adorned. Maybe he went all out because it’s visible from the street. It has

MY HUSBAND, DAVID, WAITED for me on the condo’s balcony, enjoying the hot tub’s steamy water. Before joining him, I glanced in a mirror, debating different ways I could hide my less-than-perfect figure. I stood tall and sucked in my stomach, pulling

WHILE DRIVING TO A CONFERENCE, my husband, Ted, and I headed into some intense thunderstorms, with lightning striking all around and sheeting rain making it impossible to see the road. I huddled in the front seat praying. “Lord, just because I write

THE STRESS OF THE PREVIOUS school day had not yet melted away when I received an email informing me of one more task for tomorrow’s meeting. I sank into my chair, defeated, and the morning had just begun. My schedule was already too full. What would