I awoke on Saturday night close to 12:00 a.m. with sharp pain in a tooth. After forcing aspirin chips into a tiny cavity that I had previously not known existed, I slept until 6:00 a.m. when pain awoke me. More aspirin chips got me active …( read more )
Author Archive
God-Ordained Goodness
Late afternoon, to my car in my garage, I carried the almost-thawed fish fillets that I had promised for a supper party to be held at my niece's home to celebrate my brother's 86th birthday. I punched the opener, and my big garage door …( read more )
Fire And Blood
A story passed down from 1916 in our family is of my grandfather yelling to my grandmother, in a frantic moment when their farm house was on fire with no hope of it being saved, "If you go into that house one more time, I'll not go in. Our …( read more )
Do To Others
At a picnic this past summer, I left my wide-brimmed, white cotton hat on a lawn chair to save my seat while going through the food line. When I returned with my loaded paper plate, someone was sitting on my hat! Shutting my mouth, I …( read more )
Prophecies With Fulfillments to Celebrate
When we toured Israel as a group, our faith was reinforced as our experienced leader, a Christian minister, many times supplemented our Jordanian guide's orations of what we were seeing by telling us of further connections between these …( read more )
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
by Isabel Allison A little lad, loved by kin of mine, looked straight ahead, then in voice sublime — for child philosophers tend to mime — spoke out amid the chatter of Christmas supper time: "This sure has been a good Christmas," …( read more )
Thanksgiving In Memory
One of the greatest things about celebrating Thanksgiving is the singing of long-time favourite hymns that keep coming back to us, hymns with words like: "Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has …( read more )
For Country And For God
O Canada! our home and native land, True patriot love in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The true north, strong and free, From far and wide O Canada, We stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and …( read more )
Pray, For The Devil Prowls Like A Roaring Lion
From my kitchen window, I enjoy the heavy, low-flying, distinctively coloured, quiet, slow-mannered pair of wood ducks that like to rest on their webbed feet awhile on the horizontal branches of my big, old maple trees almost every morning …( read more )
Might God Replay His Videos?
We are amazed at all of the technology that has come into use in the past fifteen years, and we wonder what might be discovered, developed, and revealed within the next very few years. God created the cosmos with all of the possibilities …( read more )
Exult In God's Kindness
Oh, my apple trees! Their delicate pink-and-white, curled-up, wee buds are opening in the sunshine. These new, little trees thrill me! At a horticulture workshop a few years ago, I was shown how to graft eating-apple stem pieces onto …( read more )
Caught By The Seat Of My Pants
It happened suddenly. In my den, I stepped away from my ironing board and lost my balance. Mid-air, I dreaded injuring my already-compromised hip. Almost at the floor, the seat of my pants caught on a plastic projection sticking out from …( read more )
The Heavens Declare The Glory Of God
It was a very snowy winter. Snow after snow fell, day after day. We lived in a very white world. As spring thaw began, a team of horses pulling a sled suddenly went down so deep beside the winter-packed tracks that they threw snow over …( read more )
From The Lips Of Children — And Adults
While I was eating lunch with my sister-in-law and her little lad about three-and-a-half years of age, my sister-in-law's phone rang, and she left the table to answer. Just then, the little lad finished his bowl of spaghetti and cheese, …( read more )
But I Tell You
When I taught children of Wycliffe Bible Translator personnel in the Peruvian highlands in South America, the children would pick the raisins from their recess snack cookies and drop them into the grass saying that they didn't like …( read more )
I Stole Watermelons Only Once
The young person sat before me and said, "I stole watermelons only once." I don't recall even nodding before the rest of the story came out: A group of us young people went in a car to large fields known for their watermelon patches. …( read more )
More Than All We Ask Or Imagine
Cars lined blocks of curbsides as several hundred of us teachers converged at an inner-city school to sit as pupils and hear experts of our profession. I watched closely for a parking spot for my sky-blue Malibu as I drove slowly along a …( read more )
Expanding Awareness
When I was a little girl, maybe about three-and-a-half years of age, some of my family and some visiting cousins, children, and adults were on a patch of grassy-green yard just beyond our kitchen doorsteps. It was a beautiful, …( read more )
Oh Yes, You Can!
I'm not sure how I came so often to sit beside my grandmother when we had family gatherings. But I remember that sometimes, she'd just quietly beckon me toward herself. Now Grandma always had handwork in her fingers as she sat in her …( read more )
Jesus Wept
"I can't go to visit people when someone close to them has died." Sometimes, the person who utters words like these might fear crying when visiting sorrowing people. Yet, we can remember that God is with us to teach us how to weep with …( read more )
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Ever since I was a youngster on the platform in our one-room, country school, along with about twelve children of varied ages and grades, I have enjoyed Christmas pageants. At the age of ten or eleven, I was the chosen angel Gabriel, and …( read more )
Jesus Our Messiah
My great-niece, who has taken on a leadership position with a Christian youth organization, has recently married. What would be an appropriate wedding present? I thought of giving a few books to add to the young couple's now-combined …( read more )
Our Father In Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
I'm glad that I grew up in a church where The Lord's Prayer in unison was repeated meaningfully. We did not rush: Even we children could keep up, conscious of the meanings as we prayed with everyone. Now, I like to repeat The Lord's …( read more )
The Way Of Love
At the supermarket, I wheeled my three articles, precariously balanced on the front bar of my two-front-wheel, two-back-skids walker, into the last check-out aisle signed "Limit 12 Articles". The lady in front of me had just put a few …( read more )
God Moves In A Mysterious Way
Far out in the Pacific Ocean, away to the north of Papua New Guinea's mainland, just before 9:30 a.m. on the beautiful morning of February 26, 2014, six persons, John and Marjo Brownie (Wycliffe Bible Translators), one of their …( read more )
Changed From Glory Into Glory
In Bird's Hill Park north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, I rested one mid-summer evening on scruffy grass by the side of irregular rows of tall trees. Suddenly, I saw by my feet an ugly, blackish-brown, seemingly almost dead bug half the …( read more )
Pure Religion
On the wall above my computer is a large, framed picture that I embroidered. Its title is "White Pine", but I call it "The Widow". Centred in the near end of a narrow lane, a great, elderly, grayish-green pine tree stands alone, brittle …( read more )
Carrying One Another's Burdens
Two years ago my left hip broke, and it has not healed well. I have to use a walker. Many people have helped me wheel groceries to my car and put them in the trunk. Teenaged boys at church have lifted my walker into the back seat of my …( read more )
The Lamb Of God
A young girl witnessed a scary time when her parents disagreed and her erratic mother raised a sharp kitchen knife toward her father. God intervened and tragedy was prevented. Her father retreated. No one was hurt. "Yes, my son," Abraham …( read more )
The Old Shoe Irons
When I purchased my house in the village of Roland, I found a few things left here and there that I thought the descendants of the former owners might like to have: an end table, some framed pictures, a footstool… . Out in the garage …( read more )
Heaven Is For Real
I have been reading a wonderful little book called Heaven is for Real. It is the story of a little boy, Colton, who, when extremely ill in hospital with a burst appendix, had experiences of being in heaven. His father, Todd Burpo, …( read more )
The Earnest Of Our Inheritance
"Earnest" might be your name. Or the shortened form, "Ernie," might be the name of the boy you went to school with. Words used for names of people often have meanings. "Earnest" can mean "serious." When we say, "He was earnest when he …( read more )
The Perfect Gift
Loving grandparents gave their three-year-old grandson a sturdy black and red four-by-four toy truck for Christmas. Squatted on his knees on the floor, the lad tore off the wrapping, picked up the truck, and went to a cupboard where old …( read more )