There’s an ancient proverb that flat out states, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow to it” (Proverbs 10:22). At face value, that’s just flat out wrong. There is no such thing as blessing without brokenness. There isn’t. Life is not a fairy tale. We don’t live this life without […]
Letter: Where I Found My Dearest Treasure
When I was a pastor on Whidbey Island, and our children were very young, we had just finished reading “Blackbeard’s Ghost” to our ‘little pirates,’ so it seemed reasonable, living on an island after all, for them to set off in search of buried treasure. So down the beach they went, child’s yellow shovel in […]
Letter: Saying Goodbye
It is never easy – much more like gut-wrenching misery – to say goodbye to someone you love. The promise of love is like the spring sun that warms the earth where late-fall bulbs were planted. Responding from beneath the soil little green sprouts suddenly appear and excitement builds for the intricate beauty of what […]
Letter: And I Think to Myself, What a Wonderful World
My writing desk is surrounded by joy. There’s the latest drawing by my granddaughter depicting her conception of her picture being taken by her mother, whose outstretched cell phone captures both their biggest-grin faces, and both – accurately drawn – with lots of hair. “And that’s you grandpa,” she said, pointing to the stick figure […]
Letter: The World Has Been Waiting for You – Breathing Life Into Your Story
This is about you. This is about anyone and everyone who has (and truth be told, who is there who has not?) suffered a life-shattering loss. This is about those whose heart has been broken, stepped on, crushed, and who, weeping on their knees, begin, blinded by tears, gathering up the shards of what remains. […]
Letter: Make This Moment Matter
As most of my readers know I lost my dearest treasure on all this earth to cancer just 11 months ago. I have begun the arduous task of sorting through what to keep, and what to discard, after 50 years of marriage. The collectables go to the kids. The items with still some use go […]
Letter: The Old Rocking Chair
Actually, I don’t know who once sat in the pictured old rocking chair. I don’t even remember where I took the picture. I just found it last evening in one of the many boxes I’ve been removing from the basement, stored there for nearly a half-century. I can picture her however, as she once had […]
Letter: He Sees, and Knows, and Cares
Just a pair of miniature Dutch shoes and some old books are among the remaining items left that will soon depart for their new home with her children. She was Dutch, loved tulips, and loved to have her husband read to her from those old books. There are memories there in those tear-stained ancient romance […]
Letter: When You Can No Longer See, Remember What Was Said
Down feathers swirled and billowed in the rear view mirror, an instant summer snow storm behind our green Volkswagen bug. We were setting off on our honeymoon a half-century ago, going camping in the far northern wilderness reaches of Canada. The trunk had come open and our pillows flew out on either side, and there […]