Before

“Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,

ever from everlasting to everlasting,

Thou art God.”  (Psalm 90:2)

The second verse is like a pipe organ with all of the

stops pulled out on the last phrase. I need the King James 

in order to capture His glory and majesty. He is God--

before creation, before the mountains were raised up.

He is still God in the present moment. From the beginning

to the end, from everlasting to everlasting, He is God!

Listen to the beat:

When life implodes:

“Thou art God!”

When fires, earthquakes, floods come:

“Thou art God!”

When nations rise against nations:

“Thou art God!”

When I wake in the morning:

“Thou art God!”

I revisit this verse when I read the newspaper,

when my flight is canceled, when I have a bad

Lyme day. Oh, dear reader, listen to the music--

“From everlasting to everlasting

Thou art God.”


Stories are a place of encouragement.
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Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses, The Man of God

“Lord, You have been our dwelling place

In all generations.”

Psalm 90:1

Dwelling place: A refuge, a place of safety, a home

For all generations: Not just in the past, but NOW!

Psalm 91 verse one continues this theme:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will abide in the shadow of the Almighty... 

My dear Papa, You are my dwelling place, but 

often I am so busy going here and there, that I 

forget, not just the dwelling place, but YOU. Things

are going pretty well and I can handle life. Not so!

I am  glad that I don’t have to be conscious of 

where I live in order for it to be true. It is true

whether or not I sense that I am safe. You indeed 

ARE my refuge, a very present help in trouble. 

YOU ARE MY DWELLING PLACE!

Dear Reader, He is your dwelling place also, even if

God does not feel real to you today.

Do stop by tomorrow so that together we may swim in this sea of Life. 

An Extraordinary Ordinary Day!

My United flight was canceled and I was rescheduled for the next day.

Hum. Wonder what God was up to?

When I got to the gate I found myself seated next to a woman who 

looked as if she might be from Idaho rather than DC or Chicago. I 

introduced myself and we started to talk. Not only was this stranger

from Idaho but she grew up in Weiser and had Glen’s parents as her

principal and librarian in Junior High School!  Karen knew Glen’s brothers. 

Now how could something like this "just happen?”

On the trip from DC to Chicago there was a  passenger in the middle 

seat next to me. He was a seven year old Chinese boy who was going 

to pick up his plane to China in Chicago. This wiggly talkative young boy 

was flying to China ALONE--and not for the first time,either, although 

I think his older brother was with him the previous summer. 

He had an 18 hour flight ahead of him.

I listened to him chatter:

“I can speak chinese clearly and with the correct pronunciation.” he

said proudly, “My classmates are stupid.”

I wondered, “What does he know about Jesus?”

The only thing I could think of was to sing him a song:

“Jesus loves me this I know

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong,

They are weak but He is strong.” etc.

When I began to sing about Jesus the boy’s eyes became

wide, but when I finished he said with an emphatic tone,

“Jesus is old and weak!”

I wish I had thought to ask him how he knew this, but 

I was so taken aback by his response I was speechless.

My ordinary travel day became an extraordinary day

very quickly. I had anticipated that God had something

in store for me as He had “gone out of His way” to inconvenience

a whole bunch of people! Evidently a problem in Atlanta 

had disrupted a number of flights. I wonder how many

of the passengers considered that God was in the mix?

The House Next Door

More on our time in Idaho:

The house next door to Ruth’s house is for sale.

We call the owner and troop over to see the house. Glen is quiet, the kids 

and I are excited. We walk into a sweet refurbished kitchen and then into 

the living area. I love the look and feel of the house and, compared to 

Northern Virginia, it is a very inexpensive house to live in as it can be 

heated with wood in the winter, and needs little air conditioning in the summer, 

not to mention the low property taxes. It would be a delightful place to live! We 

can see the Snake river from the second story back deck which could be glassed in.

So what is the problem? My husband is not interested in moving back to Weiser

right now; he is not finished with his career; he is content with the way things are. 

I am the one who is restless.

For two days I plotted the move: where to place my furniture, how to make all of 

this happen-- but I did not call the realtor...

On the third day I surrendered:  

“What is your will, Papa?”

The most beautiful thing happened at this point. I “saw” that God knew the

deep desires of my heart and that He could meet them at any time. It is nothing for 

Him to do so. I have been looking for a “home” since leaving my childhood behind

at age 18. (First it was school, then apartments, then the military.)

A song rises in my heart:

“This world is not my home I’m just a passin’ through,

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue...”  

I can wait...I am, even now, at home in Him!

( I shared my love for Weiser, Idaho in a blog called, “The Place.”)

HER Lawn

I arrive on Sunday, but the wind did a number on her

beautifully manicured lawn on Friday night. 

“The mowers come on Tuesday and all that has to be picked up 

and I guess I’ll have do it,” she murmurs. 

I look at her lawn and it looks fine to me.

The next morning I went out early for a walk and noticed the sticks

hidden down in the grass so I spent the next hour collecting and disposing

of sticks and pine cones. The trash seemed to multiply. But, it was such a 

joy to do this for my 88 year old Mother-in-law, Ruth. 

The next thing I knew, Ruth was talking to a teenager and asking him to

come over to do some projects including the lawn. I tried to show her that

I had worked on it, but to no avail. Imagine my surprise when the teenager

found an hours worth of sticks and pine cones! I watched him.

I was triggered!

I was MAD!

“I did all that work, and, without a kind word, she is doing it all again?”

“I can’t seem to please her when I try to do the outside work. She does

it over again”--for this was not the first time this sort of thing had happened.

“I can tell by the way she looks at me that she is not happy with me.”

(which was not true!)

This sort of conversation within myself continues throughout the afternoon.

A little grumble here and a little grumble there can become a big overflowing

outburst and then what? I have a wonderful mother-in-law who has a passion

for the outside of her house. She almost died four months ago. What is all this

about, really? Me! If I concentrate on the beautiful person she is and all the fun we

have, if I look at the whole instead of the quirks, then things drop into perspective 

and I can let the whole thing go. My sweet Papa shines the light into my heart;

I receive His perspective, and peace reigns!

On Turning 70

Admitting you're 70 isn't easy.
It takes courage.
It takes humility.
It takes five to ten years...

(By then 70 looks awfully good!)

The little saying was printed on a framed picture
and was given to me by my husband when I turned 50.
I passed it on to a good friend when she had her 50th
birthday.  It seemed appropriate again so I just changed
the number...

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"The Place"

Two weeks have passed and I am back in Virginia. It seems like a dream.
So fast. Where did the time go? I want to introduce you to "The Place."

Glen's parents had lived in Weiser Idaho for most of Glen's life but in
1968 they bought some property outside of town on the Snake
River, and they put a double wide trailer over a hole that became the
basement. Glen and I married in 1970 and I first visited "The Place"
Christmas of 1971. That was the beginning of my love relationship
with both the house and the town which still counts 5,000 residents--
though not the all same people! It is a farming community where
family values stand and where there is a church on almost every corner.

We brought both of our children to Weiser as infants. (Now my grandson is
crawling down the very same set of stairs.) As they grew up cousins arrived
and everyone came together around the 4th of July for food, fun, and our own
fire works. Our kids spent two summers with their grandparents during the
transition times of changing military bases.

In the early years it was all about the children. They have all grown up now,
and scattered. Glen's Dad died 22 years ago and since then it has been about
helping Glen's Mom, Ruth, stay on this beautiful piece of property. Her four
sons and there wives come together around the 4th of July with tools in hand
to prune bushes and trees, dig up things to replant, clean out the concrete pond,
so it can be filled with clean water, and get rid of "stuff" that has collected in the
garage and the red barn. Ruth at 88 still runs the show and can be seen out
in the yard encouraging and even working alongside her kids. When the 4th of
July arrives that work stops and the center moves toward a huge family picnic
out on the deck under trees that started out so very small.  It was and is, our home.


Two new stories are posted in the web site:

To read more of my stories, click here:

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