Once, a young girl named Martha Taft was asked to introduce herself to her elementary school classmates. She stood up with self-assurance and said, “My name is Martha Bowers Taft. My great-grandfather was president of the United States. My grandfather was a United States senator. My daddy is the ambassador to Ireland. And I am a Brownie.”
I love her confidence! Read more…
It was one of my favorite trees. And it was dying.
We live on a lake, and my dying tree was truly a “tree planted by streams of water.” So how could it be dying? How could branches right in the smack dab middle of the bushy green be turning into kindling? It didn’t make sense.
I called an arborist to come out and take a look. Read more…
I sat on my back porch, wrapped in my fuzzy worn robe—the one that’s twenty years old that I just can’t seem to get rid of. The birch trees waved “good morning,” and the newly planted gerbera daisies stretched their faces to the sun…just a bit higher than the day before. Then I heard him. The rooster.
ER-er-ER-er-ERRRR. Read more…
He did it again. The devil whispered a lie into my head, and I believed it. Of course, I didn’t know it was him. I thought it was just me. But it wasn’t.
Did you know the devil wants to sneak up on you? He prowls around like a lion just looking for the right opportunity.
If Satan came to you in a little red suit with a pitchfork and announced himself as the devil, Read more…
You could smell the fried chicken as we walked out of the restaurant, but we pranced out as if nothing was unusual.
When I was in college my friends and I never had enough money to go out to dinner…unless it was all-you-can-eat night at Wilbur’s Barbeque. On those nights, we gathered our pennies and ate until we hurt. Read more…
Sometimes I feel like such a mess, I wonder what God even wants with me. And then He reminds me that ALL His children are a mess in one way or another.
A common theme throughout Scripture is overcoming failure.
I wrote this devotion a while back, but I needed a reminder of what I learned that day. This New Year, wonder if you do too.
I set out to tackle a task I had put off for many years. I didn’t really want to do it at all. It was the job of cleaning out my ministry storage closet. Read more…
I was checking out my Facebook posts and feeling a little bit left out. It seemed everyone was having a big ole time with family and friends, and well, I wasn’t. It was the holiday season and it appeared all the family gatherings were picture perfect…and mine wasn’t.
Pinterest postings of perfect sausage pinwheels. Facebook pics of glittery table setting with Christmas China and matching napkins. Read more…
Have you ever been so discouraged that you just wanted to stay in bed and pull the covers up over your head? Maybe that’s where you are right now.
I felt that way last Christmas when my son and daughter-in-law didn’t make it to our house for our much longed for, much planned for holiday visit. A snow storm canceled their flight and it was too dangerous to drive. Read more…
In the South, we name our beach cottages. Barb’s Folly was one of our favorites to rent. Her screened-in back porch on the second floor overlooked a weather-worn dock jutting out over a lazy canal, and fuchsia myrtle bushes dotted the landscape like splashes of paint. The outdoor back stairway wrapped around a palm tree that reached for the sky, Read more…