Devotions
Copy Me – 1 Corinthians 11:1
“Stop copying me!” My oldest daughter yelled from across the kitchen table. I was busy chopping kale into a salad while the girls smooshed and cut balls of play dough into their own flattened piles of green. As usual, little sister was mimicking everything big sister was doing. “Why does she do that?” My frustrated girl asked, as I turned to intervene. “Because you matter,” I empathetically replied. “You matter so much sissy wants to [...]
Sing a Song – 2 Chronicles 20:21, Psalm 32:7
On Monday, I awoke to a worship song stuck in my head. I’d heard it at church on Sunday and then again on the radio coming home. So, I made lunch while humming it. I cleaned the house, got the kids’ stuff ready for school, swept the driveway, all while continuing to let it roll around in my mind. I even went to bed singing it. And now, on Monday morning, it was irreparably stuck. [...]
Laugh A Little – Psalm 126:2
I awoke this morning to the sounds of laughter reverberating down the stairwell just above my bedroom door. My three children were sitting in pajamas at the top of the steps. They’d tied blankets as capes around their necks and were giggling nonsensically about their superhero adventures, imaginative play at its finest. I listened to them carry on as warm, soft daylight began to filter through the window next to me. The warmth of gratitude [...]
Just Pray – Matthew 6:8, Romans 8:26
In hard times, have you ever struggled with knowing just how to pray? I certainly have. I thought I needed the ‘right’ words for God to hear me. A prayer with eloquent sounding phrases and perfectly articulated expressions would better warrant His answering or at least solicit His comfort and reassurance when I was hurting. When I tried, though, I couldn’t make my prayers sound eloquent. In fact, they were deformed and downright ugly. Sometimes, [...]
For the Nobodys – Psalm 139:14
“I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are you – Nobody – too?” When I was a sophomore in college, I recited these lines of poetry with gusto to an auditorium full of middle school students. I didn’t comprehend fully then what Emily Dickinson meant about that inner battle we all face between feeling like a ‘nobody’ while secretly wishing to be a ‘somebody.’ All I knew was memorizing and reciting her poem was my final [...]
Lucky Penny – Psalm 90:4
I sat behind the steering wheel, just listening to my children in the back seat deep in conversation. Their discussion revolved around a “lucky” penny they’d found. It’d been haphazardly discarded next to the cart return area in the grocery store parking lot. My resourceful son, of course, picked it up. One man’s trash, a little boy’s treasure, I suppose. “Sister, look at this penny.” I heard him say intently. “It’s soooo old!” “How old, [...]
