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A Mother of Influence

I’m making my way through a book titled: Mothers of Influence. It is a collection of stories about the Christian mothers of men and women who have changed the world. Today, I read about Susannah Wesley, mother to John and Charles Wesley, men who brought revival to the Protestant church. Susannah was born in 1669 and lived to 1742. During her lifetime, she bore nineteen children, only nine of which survived to adulthood. She spent at least one hour a day in prayer, often pulling a large apron over her head in her crowded household so her children knew to […]

By Paula August 25, 2010

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

This past Sunday I found myself lying on the floor curled against my carry on at the Providence, R.I. airport. I was sleeping, though it was the middle of the day with people rushing past to catch their flights. Under normal circumstances, I would never snooze on the ground of a public place like a homeless person. Actually, I’m a light sleeper and I don’t nap unless I’m sick, not to mention the fact that a dirty carpet pressed against my cheek has never appealed to me as it did on Sunday, but that afternoon capped a completely unexpected and […]

By Paula August 18, 2010

Morning, noon, and night sickness…

I’ve always wondered why they call it morning sickness. I’ve never had just morning sickness. In my experience it is morning, noon, and night sickness. Any hour of the day, I could toss my cookies to the crows that roost in Yuba City. Last night I was at our son’s soccer game in the river bottoms. Of course I had to use the bathroom because this is another constant thing in my pregnant life right now, and the port-a-potty was about the nastiest thing I have ever seen. After stepping into that furnace of feces, I fell out of the […]

By Paula August 7, 2010

What I learned from a three-year-old…

This past week I helped with Vacation Bible School at our church, VBS as it’s called for short. To my alarm, this year I was put in charge of nearly a dozen three-year-olds. Teaching tots is not my gift. I much prefer walking college kids through God’s word. The good news was that I didn’t have to teach these little ones the Bible. Someone else did the teaching. I was put in charge of receiving these tiny students from their parents and guiding them from class, to games, to snack, to the bathroom, and back to class, and then returning […]

By Paula July 31, 2010

THE PILGRIMAGE

A year ago at this time I was working hard on a novel I believe was from God. To my amazement, the whole story played out in my mind like a movie over a few days time last May in the middle of something difficult I was going through. That difficulty quickly passed, but the story wouldn’t let me sleep. I took notes like crazy in May, and on the first day of June, sat down at my computer to write. By September, I had a novel in my hand that I carried to the ACFW conference. It was my […]

By Paula July 22, 2010

Touching the Ark

Today while reading the Bible, I was struck by the story of Uzzah, a man who touched the ark and died in the Old Testament. I’m not talking about Noah’s ark. This was the ark of the covenant of the LORD, the chest that contained the ten commandments. What struck me about Uzzah’s death was that he touched the ark with good intentions and still was put to death by God. The following scriptures explain this event… “If it seems good to you and if it is the will of the LORD our God, let us send word far and […]

By Paula July 8, 2010

Did you sharpen your axe?

“Did you sharpen your axe?” I asked my dad yesterday. He was looking weary as he sat behind his desk at his engineering office. “No,” he answered. “I’m too busy to sharpen my axe.” I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him. This is the meaning behind sharpening your axe to my dad and me: it means have you prayed today? I can’t quite remember when this axe/prayer became something special between us. Like just about every other thing I love about my dad, I can’t place the moment that thing became special to me. This 4th […]

By Paula July 7, 2010