“Well officer, I was quietly minding my own business here in this church pew when the disruption happened.” Really, there’s no better way to describe it . . . A Sunday morning. From my place in a pew on the south side of the sanctuary, the image came to me all at once in myContinue reading “Picture This: A Strange Little Story About Prayer That Could Happen to You”
Category Archives: Simple Blessings
Unplugged
The young family had moved to a town in a river valley that prevented clear TV reception without cable. Cable, it turned out, was pricey. To live within their modest means, they pulled the plug. They kept the TV appliance for occasional use with a video player, but kissed network programming and 24/7 broadcasting good-bye.Continue reading “Unplugged”
A gift for you from an unlikely source
If you want to believe that goodness and grace can triumph over darkness, then here’s a tale for you.
Rudely interrupted by a tomato worm
“Why are you always doing dishes,” my granddaughter asks. Because they’re there. Because if I don’t, who will? Because I was blessed with the responsibility gene? Because by now–decades into my dish washing career–it’s pretty much a knee-jerk response. Because warm soapy water comforts. Because doing dishes clears a space for “what’s next.” Because momentsContinue reading “Rudely interrupted by a tomato worm”
The Porch
If any part of the house had a right to cry, “Me, me, fix me,” it was the porch . . . But the comfortable little maple porch rocker with its rush-woven seat and gently curved ladder back, proved a faithful friend.
Onstage: Judy, Hoover, and me
Each Sunday night in 1963, when Judy Garland sang to a live TV audience, she sang to me, too, just a kid in my pajamas taking in one last TV show before bedtime. Week after week, I watched her nod and blink and run her fingers wildly through her hair. She’d wind the microphone cordContinue reading “Onstage: Judy, Hoover, and me”
His girl
Daddy and daughter forever: blessed.
Wishing for Barbie mom
I wanted to know the expert technique of applying mascara in front of a locker-room mirror to impress some boy in math class. God had something else in mind . . .
What’s Kubota got to do with it?
Well, just about everything. Whenever I pass a Kubota tractor dealership, I think of my dad. He never owned a Kubota. Kubota was just one detail from a greater conversation we shared on a pleasant day at a tractor show during the last year of his life. At 88, he possessed a sharp mind andContinue reading “What’s Kubota got to do with it?”
Humble Beginning, Grand Design
“Then she experienced what she later called “the shock of my life.” A voice startled her with these words, ‘I want you in Coopersville, Michigan.'”
Morris Sampler 