These are the days that try men’s souls (women’s too). In fact, this woman is tiring of the desert trek that has gone on since last July. Today marks eight months since I was told cancer had returned. But in looking at what I just typed – eight months – that is such a pittance […]
Desert Days – When You Have Forgotten the Words
“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.” Last December I needed my friend, and bless her heart, she came through. The email she sent me in reply to my cry to ‘sing my song back to me!’ fairly […]
Desert Days – A Heart Set on Pilgrimage, Part 1
One thing God intended about deserts: we were never meant to linger in them longer than necessary. “Necessary for what?” you might ask. To come to the realization that desert journeys are not just ‘part of life,’ as we blithely remark. More than that, they are purposed as a Divinely-orchestrated thoroughfare (in spite of the […]
Desert Days – A Heart Set on Pilgrimage, Part 2
Welcome to the next installment of Desert Days. There is definitely a specific focus to the writing these days, courtesy of the Lord. I find myself held in this place by His Spirit until He releases me on to something different. I wouldn’t wish it any other way (and pray you aren’t finding yourself saying, […]
Desert Days – A Heart Set on Pilgrimage, Part 3
I love God’s trees, even in the wilderness. Not sage brush and spiny cactus, but the ones that stand as sentinels of God Himself. He began with one tree of import in Genesis – His ‘kindness and sternness’ (Romans 11:22) instructing Adam and Eve (and me and you) the single one to avoid in His […]
Desert Days – The Gentle Gale of God
There’s a commercial that’s been running on television the past six weeks or so. The few times I’ve happened to catch it I’ve thought to myself, “There’s a blog post in there.” The setting is the desert with sand as far as you can see. In one quick scene there are two four-drawer file cabinets […]
Desert Days – As a Watchman Waits
It has been extremely difficult to get the flow going these past two weeks as I’ve attempted to write. Thus, there was no post a week ago and this is now Monday morning. All I could do was wait. Two weeks ago I returned to work after these past ten months of breast cancer treatment. […]
Desert Days – At the Scent of Water
We’re not what I would call fully ‘green’ folks, but this weekend my husband was a definite tree hugger. The corner lot our house sits on was blessed with trees by the former owners. Planted twenty-five years ago, they were small clusters here and there of “little popsicle sticks,” they proudly pointed out when we […]
Desert Days – The High Stakes of Inheritance
One man stands out to me when I read about the children of Israel frittering away forty years in the wilderness: Caleb, Joshua’s partner in clandestine operations. The two of them, along with ten other men – one from each tribe – were commissioned by Moses to explore the territory of Canaan, the Lord’s land […]
Desert Days – The High Stakes of Inheritance, Part 2
This one’s for the girls… As I was reading and writing last week about Caleb, the “give me this mountain” man, I found in Judges 1 a continuation of his story – and that of his daughter, Acsah. You can read it yourself, but the upshot is that Acsah was given in marriage to Caleb’s […]