A few weeks ago I walked into the house at the end of a long day and sank onto the couch, kicked off my boots, and launched into filling Mike in on all the details. He’s good at that; at knowing when I need to talk something through and – on this particular day – I think he realized long before I did, that I was about to, indeed, talk something through. He pulled off his reading glasses like he does when he’s preparing to give his full attention to something and he listened.
It had been a full day, with classes, labs, a meeting, and then a late lunch with one of our sons.
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My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. – II Corinthians 12:9
I was twenty-four years old – broken in spirit, weary in flesh, and heavy in heart- the night I discovered grace for the first time.
Grace wasn’t a foreign word to me. I had grown up on church pews. I had listened for years to Sunday school lessons that expounded on the magnificent grace of God. I had heard what could quite possibly be called the greatest sermons ever on the attributes of grace. Of how, though undeserved , grace flowed to God’s children, bathing their lives in unmerited favor.
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Poets and writers – for as far back as literature and songs go – have inspired mankind with the promise of renewal. A time of rejuvenation for the soul.
For those of us who know God, we know that true renewal only comes from Him.
But – although in a somewhat lesser sense – if we’re looking for it, we can find hints of this respite all around us. I believe it is His promise to us.
Night eventually turns into day. Winter slowly melds into Spring. For every tide that crashes onto sandy shores, one more is already rising up behind it.
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“Kommen sie hier, bitte.”
A simple phrase, yet a very special and poignant one in our home.
Several years ago, as we prepared for our trip to Europe, my husband and I devoured a couple of language tapes, trying to soak up enough French to sound legitimate in Paris and enough German to have some fun in Prague.
Now, almost a decade later, we remember very little of these impromptu language lessons. But this one German phrase, Kommen sie hier, bitte, remains a staple in my husband’s vocabulary. Translated, it means “Come here, please.”
But spoken in a hushed voice, accompanied by outstretched arms, it represents nothing short of pure comfort to me.
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The older I become the more appreciative I am of the true girl friends that fill my life.
While I’m not old, I’ve certainly lived long enough to recognize the futility that comes hand-in-hand with senseless competitiveness and desperate struggles to be everything you think your friend (or neighbor or sister or cousin or even a perfect stranger) is.
As I begin my cruise through mid-life I am thankful for the great group of gals that surround me. They praise my strengths and tolerate my idiosyncracies. They cry with me and laugh with me. They know that I’m not perfect and they’re okay with that.
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