Peering Through Life's Window

  We’re told in Scripture that God is love. He definitely proved His kind of love is an unconditional and undeserved type through sending His Son to die for our sins. Some love isn’t hard to conjure. God just helps us to enhance it. For example, I am still head-over-heels in love with my husband of twenty-six years. But through God’s Word and leading, I’ve learned to love my husband more like God planned for a wife to love her husband. When my little girl was born, I was in love, even though it took a lot to get her here. But God has shown me how to love my daughter through example and discipline. I struggled with infertility issues before finally conceiving my only daughter. My bitterness heightened each time I would hear about a young woman or girl who conceived out of wedlock and by accident. I cried out to God that this wasn’t fair. I wanted a baby and would care for that child and love that child, giving her a mother and a father. Some years later I was app...

    A Warm Welcome to Jennifer Slattery   Jennifer shares a devotional and a link to an excerpt from her new book, Breaking Free   Living Fully Present in the Present “Can you hear me now?” “Are you even listening?” My mind can be a jumbled mess, with so many must-dos swirling around, I miss out on the blessings unfolding right in front of me. It takes determination to remain fully present in the present. Today I choose now. This “present-focused-living” campaign started a year or so ago with a trip to the UP building to join my hubby for lunch. My daughter came with me, and the weather couldn’t have been better. Overcast, a slight breeze, maybe 75 degrees. Plus, I had annoyed my daughter a total of 0 times on the drive over. (If you didn’t believe in miracles before…) We get there to find my husband waiting, inching toward the exit. We’d fully expected to eat in the company cafe’, which is lovely. But he–and God–had other plans. M...

Winner's Choice for a book in Gay Lewis's Sarah Series is... Hats, Horns... Congratulations, Mary Preston!

A Warm Welcome to Gay Lewis   Gay will give away an e-book of the winner's choice. To enter to win leave a comment and an e-mail address below. Gay Shares a One-Hundred Year Old Cake Recipe Thanks for the inviting me to guest on your blog.  You asked me to share about myself—maybe tell something I’ve never told. So I decided to give you a recipe—one I’ve never given to anyone. I call it The One-hundred Year Old Cake—it’s at least that old and it comes from Alabama, but before you get to the ancient cake, I’ll tell you a bit about me, the cooks in the family and my latest book. My mother was the best chef I’ve ever known, with my two grandmothers coming in second and third. My mom and her parents came to Texas from Alabama. Talk about good southern cooking—they both knew the secrets. My paternal grandmother moved to Texas from Tennessee—another excellent southern cook. My mom used to make this cake and gave me the handwritten recipe. Her mother brought it f...

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)   photo courtesy of Pexels “‘We are going up to Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law, They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.’” (Mark 10: 33 – 34) photo courtesy of photobucket   “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you l...

  From the time boys became more than “tag” targets I was never without someone of the opposite sex to hang out with, call on the phone, escort me to dances or movies, even when Mom was the chauffeur. I was a drama queen flirt, histrionic friend, and disingenuous church group groupie. I’d love to say it changed in an instant when as a middle teen the Holy Spirit provided the answer to that infinite question of whether Christ was for real. Decades later, I am still working out who I am on many levels. That story won’t get the final edit until it’s over. In between, I went to college and joined not one, but two Christian groups, fell in love with the music, studying anything and everything, and the boy with the wispy blond mustache and highwater pants from one of the faith groups who prayed with me for John Denver’s soul. Seriously. We won’t know for a while if poor John received the benefit of our intervention. When the mustached boy didn’t run screaming after meeti...

Sometimes it's so hard to choose...I have to draw names... Tonight, it's... Drum roll... Congratulations! Sonja!