Golden Harvest

I will plant seeds in the barren soil of your heartache and loneliness. I will water the  hard ground  with your tears, shed in the secret  disappointments  of your heart.  My smile will burn through the your weary darkness  and scatter  the storm clouds.  I will grow a harvest  from what you rejected, wasted, and…

Words and the Sea

The sea is awake and the sand asleep. Waves wash over the uncombed glittering grains with generosity. Over and over they move in tandem, in rhythm—the washing in and out of great salty waters. My heart stings as the saline potion washes clean the wounds of yesterday. Collapsed and cradled in the arms of the…

Crucible Trophies

To the evenings without heat and mornings without water. To the showers that ended in the middle and scratchy blue crepe that doubled as toilet paper. To the rough and long drives from Myaki to Odessa, and the unreliable but wonderful poconetcom. To the red jeep, with conspicuous Texas license plates, that carried us across…

Firsts

My grandson, Emmett, wiggled and wiggled as I tried to put on his pajamas. His silly mood made us both giggle and fall on the bed with laughter. Then suddenly, Emmett grew quiet and still for a moment, and his eyes gleamed and grew as big as planets.  “Marmee, we saw Christmas lights tonight!”  “Yes, we…

Summing up 2024

And preparing for 2025! Poetical Christmas thoughts as I discern the times and transition into a new season. The Needless Loss I hear the whys within the questions And wait. I see the darkness within the night And grieve. I see the tears within the weeping And groan. I hear the cries within the screams…

Kneeling

I’ve spent a lifetime  bandaging my feet, partly from ill-fitting  shoes, traveling too  many miles in a day,  losing my way, making  a wrong turn, or  carrying too many  burdens. Also, there are the roads I’ve traveled  long just to gaze upon ancient stones, a rusted  filigree, or become dizzy with the scent of an …

Every Sparkle Shouts

It’s easy to look at the condition of the world and despair or grow cynical about the message of the birth of Jesus: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” Luke 2:14. At Bible Study Fellowship, we have been studying the book of Revelation. We just finished chapters 4…

Transformation

Transformation Is there any gold in the world more valuable than this— other than the golden moment when the red, red rose bled into the desert wasteland, transforming it into a green green garden? Bonnie Saul Wilks Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days.    The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring…

Go into all the world…

At age 14, Elizabeth Elliot of the missionary-famed book, “Through Gates of Splendor,” spoke at my church. She told the heart-wrenching and brutal story of her husband’s death, along with 4 other missionaries, at the hands of the Acau Indians in South America. She stayed on, along with her young daughter, after their deaths to…

The Zeal of the Lord

Here we are a number of years ago in Odessa, Ukraine, the birth place of the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute. “For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this,” (Isaiah 37:32). The above scripture was part of my…