2020

This month I completed a writing/editing project I have been working on about how to triumph when you are going through life's inevitable trials. Apparently saying "yes" to this project was akin to praying for patience: I was given plenty of opportunities to "practice". (If you've never prayed for patience before, do so carefully!) During this period of writing about how to triumph over trials, my ex-husband died. My mom got E.Coli ... twice. My husband took a staple-gun to the face. My step-daughter was in a car accident. My niece broke her wrist (on my watch, no less). My brother-in-law had a heart attack, followed by a stroke. My aunt injured her back. Another family member went into temporary foster care. Both our dogs have been sick. I ended up in the clinic after an encounter with a rusty nail. And those are just the trials in my immediate family that I know about! Sheesh! Would someone please pray that my next project is on prosperity?! Chan...

Lent -- the 40+ days leading up to Easter -- is a big deal to me. God always nudges me toward something that will draw me closer to Him and His will for my life. One year I read through the entire Bible in 40 days. Another year I walked across Spain, meeting and marrying my husband. Last year I donated $40 a day to 40 different organizations. And this year I felt God leading me to prayer. Because the theme is 40, I felt challenged to pray for 40 minutes a day for all 40 days. Confession: in every Lenten season I have fallen short of my goal. I did read the entire Bible, but it took me slightly longer than 40 days. I did walk across Spain, but again, it took more than the alloted 6 1/2 weeks. I did donate to 40 organizations, but I got derailed last year when my grandmother died, so those donations ended up being spread out over the course of several months. And this year? No exception. I started off strong. And so did God. I kept a notebook handy because he was so chatty. But the...

This month I had the opportunity to share a Sunday morning message with Dover Friends Church in Wilmington, Ohio. Actually they had invited me to share in January, but lucky for all of us we were snowed in that weekend and church was cancelled. I say *lucky* not because we got to stay home but because my message wasn't ready yet. It needed to--as my chef husband would say--simmer and season a bit more before it was truly ready to be consumed. The topic of my message was "rejection". Randy and I were blindsided by rejection during the last week of December, so it was very fresh on my heart in January. Too fresh. Too painful. If church hadn't been cancelled that Sunday I would have spoken specifically about the hurts we had experienced. The lies. The betrayals. And I would have shared this advice from Jesus: "Whatever village or town you enter, search for a godly man who will let you into his home until you leave for the next town. Once you enter a house, ...

Let me start by apologizing for leaving you hanging last year. Last I wrote we were being cast as characters in a Truman Capote novel, witnesses to the crime of the century in Kansas. That was "Leg 21." There were other legs. We went on to tour museums in Missouri and stay at an epic campground in Illinois and sleep in the Friends United Meeting parking lot in Indiana and eventually made it to Ohio, where we slept in the RV in a short-term parking lot at the Columbus airport waiting for Randy's daughter, Danielle, to arrive to retrieve Van. Once Van and Danielle were safely back in California, Randy and I hit the road again. We went to Toledo for hot dogs, slept in a Home Depot parking lot in Michigan, climbed sand dunes in Indiana and swam in Lake Michigan with my brother and his kids, played baseball on the Field of Dreams and attended my grandmother's memorial service in my second childhood home of Hubbard, Iowa. We broke into the home where my grandmot...

Our first adventure in Nebraska was to the Museum of the Fur Trade  in Chadron. The museum didn't look like much from the outside, but the artificats were incredible, spanning from furs to seeds to guns. Even their website is worth a visit! So well known and well researched is this place that they were called upon during the making of the movie Revenant (featuring Leonardo Dicaprio) to autheniticate every little detail. We ventured west from there (because why would we go east toward our final destination!) to another museum, but it was so hot that all we really wanted was an ice cold slushie. We stopped at the "Dairy Sweet" and had the best slushie of my life. You know how you usually run out of juice about halfway through? This one was blue raspberry all the way to the last slurp! AND the "barista" (what do you call someone who makes slushies???) convinced Van and me to add nerds to our drinks. Genius! So, so good. While we waited for our drink perfectio...

When we crossed the border from Colorado into Arizona, we left mountain life behind and entered into canyon country. We were barely 10 miles into the state when we came across 3 kids (20-somethings) who had gotten their U-haul stuck when attempting a u-turn. They were moving from Denver to Phoenix, but had apparently gotten confused about which way was south (navigating in mountain-free Arizona is very different than navigating in mountain-saturated Colorado!). Randy spent the next 2 hours helping them dig their way out of the soft Arizona sand. But when the U-haul was finally free and back on the road, they discovered they had run out of gas. We wondered if this ominous beginning was a foreshadowing of our time in Arizona, or perhaps about the future of these 3 in Phoenix. Anxious to see something of this beautiful state, we made our way to Canyon de Chelly. Which really was beautiful, yet not quite as beautiful as I expected, what with the way people rave about this place. ...

Randy and I (with the help of our granddaughter who is in town visiting and has been a godsend!) have been busy savoring each moment with the kids in our last week at Sonshine. We took the girls out to dinner Wednesday (which is a memory we will NEVER forget!) and we're taking the boys out shopping today. Followed by Randy's famous caramel popcorn and a movie ( The Star ). We've given lots of hugs and so far held back most of the tears. All of this focus on the kids this past week has made me want to seek out other organizations who are loving on all of God's children, to help support them to continue their work. These are two that I believe in. 40-40-40 ... Day 35: Right to Play I learned about Right to Play when it was advertised during the Winter Olympics this year. The mission behind Right to Play is: We use the power of play to educate and empower children to overcome the effects of poverty, conflict and disease in disadvantaged communities. The website g...