Know-Love-Obey God

She is always smiling
giving encouragement
cheering up those who come
to her for spirit-lifting
and fun, bright laughter.
She must never
have problems.
I hear her laughter
but can I listen well
enough to hear the tears
and weeping
of her heart?
Even in laughter
the heart may be in pain.
- Proverbs 14:13
For the “One Word at a Time” on Laughter, hosted by Bridget Chumbley.

A guest post by nAncY, for this High Calling Blogs group project: Over the next week, you’re invited to write guest posts on a network-friend’s site to describe how online life has been (or not been) an experience with becoming real to one another.
I met nAncY at the very, very beginning (nearly one and [...]

Self-control was a dog, big and mean, facing me
with upper lip quivering to throat-deep
rumbling growls behind vicious teeth,
keeping me from snatching another
cookie.
But I had it wrong.
Self-control is not a police dog watching me
but my loyal guard dog protecting me.
Same dog as before,
just turned the other way.
And as he sits at my heels
I scratch behind his [...]

(Cactus photo originally posted here.)
Like a baseball manager and umpire arguing on the mound, Silviu and Asher yelled nose to nose and flailed their arms. If I had been brave enough to watch more closely, I probably would have seen spit flying, too.
But I was not on a baseball diamond that morning. [...]

We named our second son Ne’eman because we wanted him to be. Ne’eman—it means faithful. (He can truly say, literally, “You want someone faithful? My middle name is faithful!”) Our other sons’ middle names mean kind and generous.
Funny, the one we named Faithful often shows strong in the kindness [...]

I rarely buy clothes. Perhaps this is rooted in my adolescent days when, as the youngest of five, I frequently “borrowed” (often without their permission—don’t tell) my older siblings’ very classy clothes purchased from Anne Taylor or The Gap. Their blouses, jackets and scarves were always more stylish than anything I could call [...]

(A poem for the “homesick” community writing project, hosted by nAncY . . .)
Snow fell on the bridge
to the castle
where five empty
wheelchairs gather, glad
to be of service to five
friends of the one
whose ninety-three
years bore fruit,
and even more fruit.
In this castle we came
to remember, rejoicing
and grieving in
the remembrance.
It is a fitting
place, this castle,
for she no longer [...]

The mother knows it as labor and childbirth, but the child in the womb only knows that the surrounding pressures are suddenly much more than the gentle, preparatory squeezes we call Braxton-Hicks. For the first time, this child lives something alarmingly different than the usual swaying in a calm womb. What has more [...]

For L.L. Barkat’s writing prompt at High Calling Blogs:
Wedding gown,
spotless linen bridal garments,
red sin-stains washed righteous-white,
cleansed white by Son’s red blood.
Replace my shabby garb.
Drape your beauty over me.
Dress me up, wedding-ready,
so I attract the Bridegroom’s gaze.
******
(By the way, I won’t be posting for a bit. Charles and I will be married fifteen years in [...]

(For L.L. Barkat’s writing prompt at High Calling Blogs)
The five-years-ago Me did not know loneliness.
Content on the window seat with Dickens or Dumas,
I turned down party invites, stayed home
from gatherings. Alone was my desire.
Emotional paths ran level—
Steady, stable, rarely a choking tear.
Around me, other hearts crumbled;
it grieved me, but I
remained
a spectator.
Then the Change came [...]