“Look, the winter is past, and the rains are over and gone. The flowers are springing up, the season of singing birds has come, and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air. The fig trees are forming young fruit, and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming. Rise up, my darling! Come away with me, my fair one!” —Song of Solomon 2:11-13 NLT I will admit it—although I don’t like to—because I love where I live: New Hampshire is not all that great at doing spring. Summers here are glorious. The temperatures are hot, but not too hot. High humidity comes only occasionally and goes away at night leaving cooler air behind. Autumn … now that’s where we shine even more. The brilliant colors of the leaves […] Read more »

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. —Psalm 40:1 NLT I wake up and have to think hard to figure out what day of the week it is. With the current pandemic raging across our country and the isolation policy in place, all my days are starting to blur together. I go nowhere except to the grocery store once a week. Fewer engagements anchor my mind to a specific day of the week, and even my virtual engagements happen randomly, not always on the same day as before. I like my house. I do … but it sure would be nice to see other sights as well! Yet here I am. The waiting wouldn’t be quite so […] Read more »

“Whenever you enter someone’s home, first say, ‘May God’s peace be on this house’” —Luke 10:5 NLT We moved a lot when we were first married. Ray was in the military, and we moved to nine different locations in seventeen years. In that same time frame, we lived in fourteen different homes. That’s a lot of houses and apartments, isn’t it? We began the habit of blessing our homes early on in our marriage. Not sure who gave me the idea, but I just knew that I wanted each place to be wholly inhabited by the Holy Spirit, given over to the Lord for His good work and purposes. Sometimes, our blessing was a simple prayer, holding hands as a family in our living room: Lord, […] Read more »

Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. —Mark 16:1-2 NLT We never wanted to get up on Easter morning. No matter how excited we might be about eventual Easter baskets and jellybean hunts, our morning always started in the middle of the night—at least that’s the way it seemed to us. My sister and brothers and I would all be snuggled deep down in soft blankets and quilts, heads pillowed, with slumber heavy upon us. We would be drugged with sleep when the shaking of our shoulders came. My mother would have prepared […] Read more »