I’m wandering the woods, feeling fall fade. The words my husband shared from the Word this morning quell the crunch of acorns under my feet, and I can add nothing more to them. I pull out my camera and praise.
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Mushrooms mottle my front yard and I’m enamored.
They are tiny white flags reminding me of the rush of rain that greened my withered grass. They are welcome.
Each morning I can choose what I notice: rainclouds or red leaves, mud or mushrooms. Today I’m determined to notice the tiny delights–like these mushrooms–along my morning run. Why miss the pleasures God so literally plants on my path? I embark on a hunt. Continue Reading
He’s Goliath, this tiny preschool African boy with skin of creamy cocoa and beautiful wide eyes. He stands in the center of the rug, smiling and shrugging his shoulders in embarrassment, though he was the first of all the children to volunteer.
We sing together again—all of us from Myanmar and Nepal and Sudan and Somalia and the US—the song of David and Goliath. “Only a boy named David, only a little sling. Only a boy named David, but he could pray and sing…”
And the sling goes round and round and round and round and round and round and round. We watch one invisible stone go up in the air…and the giant comes tumbling down. Though this little boy’s tumble is in slow motion, and he never stops smiling.
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I’m scrambling up a leaf-strewn trail in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, and I’m thinking about giants. I will find out later that I could be thinking about snakes—copperheads, to be exact—but for now, the roots that entangle the dirt at my feet are just that and nothing more.
I’ve slipped out of a conference for a breath of quiet prayer and fresh air. One of those still sitting back in the room is my friend, who with a small cohort of others is training to share the good news of Jesus to people in faraway places. She’s here because she’s heard God calling her to this—a path much harder than the one I tread through the woods today.
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