by kyle | Sep 27, 2023 | Encouragement
Sometimes our circumstances, ranging from annoying to heart-stopping, drive us to a familiar and well-loved verse, Philippians 4:6. Don’t worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. We might read it often when something is weighing on us. I find comfort in this verse because it reminds me God cares about my “stuff”, no matter how small. But one day as I read the verse, something new hit me. Tell God what you need, and thank...
by kyle | Feb 6, 2023 | Encouragement, Fiction
It’s been quite the year for trees. Last summer, I had to take 4 down. Then two more fell right after Christmas. What’s going on with the trees? I had to find out. I learned that the type of tree that kept falling, a beautiful type of cypress, also had shallow roots, even at physical maturity. Although they’d grown tall and lush with evergreen foliage, their roots didn’t go very deep. Once rains and winds came for a few days, down they went. (My long-suffering neighbor has had two of them fall...
by kyle | Oct 25, 2022 | Encouragement
Hello! By this time, we’ve seen the back of summer and are facing the new season, with all the mix of festivities and temperature changes. Let’s reframe this: fall gives you additional indoor time to read, and winter even more! Lines and Spaces A few months ago, God impressed me with the idea of lines and spaces in my life. There are times when I’m juggling too many balls, and wearing too many hats. Excuse the clichés, but I’m sure you can (at least sometimes) relate! One of the problems I was...
by kyle | Feb 23, 2022 | Encouragement, Fiction
Do you have a special theme word for 2022? I thought mine would be “flourish” because I’d chosen that one last year and wasn’t sure it had happened. So, I chose it again. But God gave me a different one: solidification. Not as pretty a word as “flourish”. “Flourish” conjures images of dew-kissed flowers and feathery ferns sprouting by a bubbling spring. There is a lot of plant imagery in Scripture, symbolizing growth and vitality as well as fruitfulness. What images does “solidification” bring...
by kyle | Dec 29, 2021 | Encouragement
Are you glad to see 2021 go away? (And didn’t we feel the same way after 2020?) This time we might be less optimistic as we transition to a new calendar year. After all, we had high hopes last year that Covid would be a thing of the past but here we find ourselves in the midst of a new variant. One day this post will be history, evidence of a scary time in our lives, only a bad memory. We’ll all say, “I’m glad that’s over!” But not yet. So, how do we face the coming year? With enthusiasm about...
by kyle | Nov 17, 2021 | Encouragement
It’s the norm for us to think of our lives as complete units instead of points on a timeline, isn’t it? Unless we step back once in a while and take a look at the sweep of years. Enjoy a memory. Notice how things have changed. A timeline has become more front of mind for me lately as I observe changes in the country and world around us, including a planet in the grip of a worldwide disease affecting everyone. I often wonder what our reality will be in two or five years, and what the big...
