Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Following

I stand on unfamiliar ground.
Places unknown lie before me.
You call me to follow,
You’re carving my way,
Yet still I hesitate.

I turn to see who’s behind me:
Souls You have placed in my care.
They watch my direction,
They’re following me,
And I no longer hesitate.
My feet take the path I should take.

Point out the road for me to follow.
I’ll hear [...]

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Parent Credentials

I was twenty-four and dressed in my only suit, the same one I wore as I job-hunted from one Silicon Valley start-up to another. I had just survived most of an all-day interview complete with grilling technical questions from different groups. I sat across a polished conference table from my last interviewer. [...]

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

In One Generation

Like grandmother’s soup recipe
and “when I was little” stories
and sepia portraits with lips and cheeks
rosy-painted in,
the worship of God
and the wonders of His works
exhibited
both in His Word
and in my own life
live only as long
as I tell it.
It only takes one generation
to lose knowledge of the Lord.
Unless I pass on my spiritual heritage
to my children and [...]

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Through the Bible with My Child (author interview and book giveaway)

**UPDATE**: Congratulations to Mary Ann, chosen by the random number generator! And many thanks for all the comments, prayers, and encouragement for us in our ministry through this book. Blessings on all of you as you teach your children and grandchildren!
Last summer, KTLF Light Praise Radio announcer Jerry King interviewed Charles Sharman, [...]

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Knowing a Father through the Child

I can learn about a father by listening to his child. This child asked his father only one question, and I knew the father a little better even before the answer came.
I am repeatedly delighted by the phenomenon that the more I slow down and look carefully in reading God’s Word, the more I [...]

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Finding My Ski Legs

Ankles bound and useless in those boots
I hobbled back to the frozen-mud
parking lot for the sunscreen
I had forgotten.
At least this time
I remembered how to click
that boot into the binding
and my calves are smaller this year
so blood vessels weren’t strangled
too much.
When we finally decided which run
to try first and glided
down to the lift called “Tumbelina”
muscles strained [...]

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Snowflakes and Fingerprints

(High Calling Blogs Book Club:
Loving Monday, by John Beckett, Chapters 12-14
See Laura Boggess’s post (and links to other Book Club posts) here.)
Today in our “school room” sit two big desks handed down by a neighbor, now an empty-nester. I still can’t believe he gave us those. They are of beautiful, sturdy oak, fashioned [...]

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

An Unusually-Stained Bible

Tear stains on a Bible tell us that someone in grief fled to the God of all comfort.
Coffee stains on a Bible tell us that she sat with the Word over morning coffee—a date with God.
Rat-urine stains on a Bible tell us that . . .
**********
A fifth-grade boy arrived to Sunday School early, so we [...]

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

I Compared Myself to a Duck

Poor child. Knowing no other way to relieve her anger, she stomped with both feet and all her might. She jumped to give more force to the stomping. It was a knees-to-chest kind of jumping; the higher the jump, the greater the outlet for her rage. She even climbed a few [...]