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3 min

If you plant it, it will grow.

Last fall I wrote about how I had planted 275 bulbs–mostly daffodils and tulips. I have never done well with growing flowers. Years ago I planted 42 rose bushes in my back yard; I’d hoped they would grow into a hedge to frame the outer edges of the yard. They never made it into the second season. One day my friend Hannah came over with a a cute sunflower seedling. She said, “Just plant this. They grow anywhere.” Well, it never made it even to adolescence. I’ve bought and plan

3 min

On Red Roses and Cheetos

The most peaceful day of the week should be Sunday, right? So, how do your Sundays go? Is it a struggle to get kids up out of bed and looking their best? Is there a last-minute shuffle to get out the door with all the things? Or is there a mindset of “do we really have to do this”? To get to our church on time for the prayer ministry I lead, a 50-minute drive on a good day, we have to leave the house at 7:30 a.m. That means an earlier rising time than any other day of the wee

3 min

Conquering the Tech Giants in my Life

I remember lyrics from a song from my children’s youth: “With my God I can do valiantly.” I sang it along with them, praying they would be strong and courageous. And they have. They’ve traveled abroad. They’ve overcome hardships. They finished college and have done well professionally. I supposed someone might say the same of me. But I never have been a courageous person. Risks are, well . . . risky. I have avoided great leaps professionally for fear of failure. Until this ye

3 min

Nine Things to do While Waiting

You’ve heard of The Dating Game, right? How about The Waiting Game? I’m terrible at waiting. Just one example comes from my early teaching days when I chaired our school’s accreditation review committee. If I delegated various writing sections of the report to certain teachers, I knew I’d have to wait until the last minute to put it together. Instead, I wrote those sections myself. Not good, because the report was probably not representative of our whole school. Another examp

2 min

Overcoming My Excuses

I have a fight with myself every day. Every day I tell myself to go for a walk. But then the excuses slip in the door. “It’s cold and windy.” “I have too much to do.” “I’m tired and need a nap.” Yesterday that fight went on for an hour and fifteen minutes. Ridiculous. Whether or not I need the exercise is not as important as the primary reason I walk: prayer. I have been prayerwalking for my community for over 22 years. My book PrayerWalk: Becoming a Woman of Prayer, Strength

2 min

Embracing Aloha

Our Honolulu girl visited for several days over the weekend. Our kids conspired to put together an early birthday celebration for a Big Zero I will face at the end of the month. It’s hard knowing your child is an ocean away. The hellos and goodbyes happen in a blink just once or twice a year. In actuality she’s about seven hours away–the same number of hours away our older son is . . . except that he and his family are just at the other end of the state. The melancholy in me

3 min

#LookingUp When You're Discouraged

I’ve had a couple weeks of struggle trying to launch an online masterclass called Prayer School. The chat experts from the venue have been slow to answer and vague in their responses. Then I realized I created the course in the wrong manner and tried to figure out how to shift what I did into the correct spot. Seemingly, “no can do.” I didn’t respond well. Complaints. Pleas. Tears. I didn’t want to have to create the thing all over again. It had taken me two months to put tog

3 min

On Following Directions, and the Right Way to Make a PB&J

I had a fun unit I did with my students when I was teaching them to write technical language. First, I created relevance for the unit by bringing in appliance and auto instruction manuals. Then I stood in front of the class with a table that had peanut butter, jelly, bread, a bread board, a knife, and a plate. “Tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” I’d say. An eager student would raise his hand. “First, put the peanut butter on the bread.” So I’d pick up th

2 min

On Counting Things

My dad was a man of numbers. After church I could ask him, “How many today, Dad?” And he’d tell you the exact number of people in worship that day. When he came home from his job as a department store manager, he’d have his figures in his hand–the total retail sales for his Liberty House (formerly Rhodes) store location. Birthdates, birth weights and lengths, anniversaries, and more were recorded in little leather-bound books he kept in his suit jacket pocket. All the mysteri

2 min

Avoiding Surgery

When I walked into the office at Loyalton High, where I worked, I was surprised to see that our son Josh hadn’t signed up for his second year of basketball. When I saw him next and asked him about that, he said, “I’m not playing this year.” When I asked why, he said, “Because of my knee.” It turned out that many months before then he had ridden a four-wheeler at his friend’s house, flipped it, and been knocked unconscious, also damaging his knee. I’d never been told. What his

2 min

Cheek Turning

How long have you lived in your house? This year will mark FORTY years that we’ve lived in our home. Can you believe that? It seems unreal to me. How can that be? The last year Craig was serving in the Army, we took a risk in buying three lots in our little town in the Sierra Valley and hired a contractor to frame our home and separate garage. He was a slow-moving vehicle, so it wasn’t until a year after we’d actually moved back to California from Kansas that we could move in

2 min

Muddy Boots

I have a cousin Roger, who used travel from the central coastal area of California to our family home south of Sacramento to go duck hunting. There are many marsh areas near there–perfect for his sport. But boy, when he came back to our house at the end of the day, he was covered in muck from wading into those tules. Just a silly teenager, I reacted without thinking one day. “Boy, you’re a filthy mess.” He shook his head at me and said something I’ll never forget. “Good thing

3 min

Mercy Me

I think I first understood the concept of mercy the last week of my high school chemistry class. From the first day of that class I hated it. The trigger occurred when Mr. Winters said, “Memorize the periodic table of elements.” My reaction was WHY? It was on a giant chart in front of the classroom. Why would I ever need to know 105 (hey, it was awhile ago) abbreviations for chemical elements if they were all right there on a big chart at the front of the classroom? (Hey, the

3 min

When Your Plans get Sidetracked

When I got my teaching credential years ago, I never pictured myself teaching elementary school students. However, that’s what happened when cutbacks occurred at the high school where I was teaching after one year there. All of a sudden I found myself faced with the challenges of teaching not only English but also math, history, geography, current events, science, art, and P.E. And I was newly pregnant with our fourth child. There were things I never imagined I’d have to do,

4 min

Feeling Rammed with Finances?

Years ago when Craig proposed to me, I was a senior in college, and he was a first-year law school student. One of the crazy, random thoughts at that time that went through my brain was this: “I’m going to marry a lawyer, and I’ll never have to worry about money.” Well, as life turns out we still struggled to pay bills as we built a house and raised four kids in a rural town of just about 1,000. While business folks from our little town were MOST enthusiastic about a lawyer h

2 min

Hearing Better in 2021

“She has a mind of her own.” That was what I heard my mom say about me as a child. And what does that mean? At the best, determined, goal-oriented. At the worst, disobedient, uncooperative, stubborn. I think my mom meant the latter description but always hoped for the best. Noah has always been such inspirational character to me. God asked him to do the impossible, and more than once the scripture tells us Noah did all God commanded him to do. His story is about obedience. Wh

4 min

Word of the Year, Part 1

“Words, words, words,” Hamlet says in the library scene of Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Often played with humor, Shakespeare’s scene helps Hamlet develop the false idea that he is going insane. But it’s not a crazy idea to choose a Word of the Year. I started doing this in 2012. Something led me to look up the meaning of my name, Janet. When I saw that it means “God’s gracious gift,” I almost laughed out loud. Me, a gift, much less a gracious gift? Oh no. That needed work. So

3 min

Need Some Christmas Grace?

I found a cute pair of salt and pepper shakers at our new antiques store in Loyalton–Lombardi Mercantile. I might have overlooked them from earlier visits there, as they were beaten up with use–the painted exterior worn from lots of salting and peppering and a missing piece on Salt. However, I noticed some lettering on the back, and when I picked them up and examined them more closely, my reading confirmed my thoughts: Salt has a grace to say before meals, while Pepper has a

3 min

Church is not the Foundation

A little reflection on the 50th anniversary this week of my faith commitment. I was raised going to church in Hudson in upstate New York. Every Sunday we five kids put on our best clothes and headed out the door with Mom and Dad. My sister Nan and I were old enough to sing in the girls’ choir, so for the first service we put on choir robes and sang from sideways pews up the steps by the altar. After the service we quickly hung up those choir robes and ran upstairs in the chu

3 min

From Nothing to Something

“Words. Words. Words.” A famous line spoken by Hamlet–one of my favorite lines from Shakespeare. Words fascinate me. How can something hurt but also heal? Enlighten but also confuse? Make something out of seemingly nothing? Examine this from my reading today: “Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose w