Know-Love-Obey God

It can be good
to look back,
analyze,
wonder why,
learn.
But after seeking
the explanation or cause,
I turn to look
forward and ask,
“Father, how
do You want me
to respond?”
After the Why, Lord?
comes the What now?

(For the One Word Carnival on “Reflection” hosted by Peter Pollock. Visit Peter’s place on Dec. 28 to read more posts on Reflection!)

Our sons are chore-challenged, but it’s not their fault. I haven’t taught them how to work.
But I’ve seen an example of how it can be done. I had a few jaw-dropping moments the last time I was at Steve and Beth Ann’s house. I had been there before and noticed the steady [...]

When I was about nine my parents started me on tennis lessons. I loved it! Every Saturday they took me to the pro shop in Lomita, California. Attached to the pro shop was a single tennis court where I had my thirty-minute lesson. Coach Bob Ingersoll was great. He really [...]

For the High Calling Blogs book club:
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Laura Boggess leads our discussion on chapter one.
I am thinking of four repulsive men. If I met them in person, I would find it hard not to cringe at them. I would have [...]

Or perhaps I should call them my Soulguards:
Discretion
and
Understanding
They are protective pair,
one at the front door,
and one at the back,
each one a tattooed bouncer
in his muscle shirt,
hands closed in fists,
spiked leather straps
circling both wrists,
ready
to boot out any
foolishness
or hasty, thoughtless
life choices.
Discretion will guard you.
Understanding will watch over you.
- Proverbs 2:11
(And for another Soulguard, see Turn That Puppy [...]

I often sat next to Jeannie in choir. (The short ones get the front row.) She never greeted me without also boosting my spirit with an encouraging statement (and, being an encouragement sponge, I soaked it up). Her short, neatly arranged gray hair perfectly suited her unique combination of realistic optimism and [...]

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 [...]

(High Calling Blogs Book Club:
Loving Monday, by John Beckett, Chapters 18-21
See Laura Boggess’s post (and links to other Book Club posts) here.)
I shake my head a bit and smile at the fact that both “The Balancing Act” and “Vision” are in this week’s Book Club chapters. I sigh in the recollection that, not too [...]

On a “blah” autumn day (too cold to hike or play outside, but no snow for skiing or a snowball fight) we took our sons to the craft store, hoping to find indoor entertainment. One boy chose a paint-by-number set of a black labrador puppy in a pond. Nice!
Several months later the less-than-half-painted [...]

Stay up late to be wide-awake
witnesses as time molts
the last dry deadness
of last year’s skin
outgrown
and emerge, having grown,
with soft skin freshly painted
with the new year’s colors.
Coming to the almost-midnight
New Year’s countdown,
I want to join time
in molting the self
that died and dies again,
the steady decrease of me
for the increase of Another
so that I may
emerge, having grown,
with [...]