The entire last four months have felt like “one of those days” at work. It seems like my team can’t catch a break. This week seemed more brutal than usual. Friday, I left work feeling like I had been beat up. I was physically and mentally exhausted and ready for a nice, relaxing weekend. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen…
Every time I use my driveway, my car bouncing over the uneven surface reminds me of the incredible strength roots have. My driveway is being broken apart from the bottom up by the roots of the giant Bradford Pear tree nearby. Roots are so powerful they can break up a solid slab of concrete weighing many tons! We can…
I talk with God a lot. I mean a lot. It wasn’t always that way, though. Prayer used to seem like a chore. I often didn’t remember to pray, and when I did, it felt either like an afterthought or a forced obligation. I didn’t pray out loud because my prayers seemed inadequate to my…
Balance is a beautiful thing. Unlike symmetry which requires sameness, balance allows for differences to offset each other. One of my favorite examples of asymmetrical balance is in the creation story in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 of the Bible. God worked six days to create the world and rested the seventh day. This…
Tis the season for exchanges and returns. Retail stores often experience their busiest week of the year right after Christmas. Gifts that are the wrong size, color, or just not wanted are taken back to the store for exchange or return. During my years working in retail, I witnessed the purchase-return cycle countless times. A shopper searching…
My dad had a dream of living on a self sustaining farm. The spring before my seventh birthday, he bought a five acre homestead in central Illinois and moved our family there. We were surrounded by mega farms on all sides so it seemed to me as if we had moved to a small island in the middle of…