One of my favorite things about the week between Christmas and New Year's Day is the opportunity to reflect and dream: to reflect on the gifts of the previous year and dream God-sized dreams for the year to come. Here are 15 questions I'm prayerfully asking myself as 2024 wraps up and 2025 begins. [...]
This week, our tree transitioned from pieces in a cardboard box into a twinkling memorial to holy days. Some were ecstatic to decorate. Some wished they were doing something else. The parents were tired and only started because they knew it wouldn’t get easier with delay. We needed the lavishness of white lights and [...]
We each have a unique way of seeing the world, on this side of eternity. This week a friend’s glasses broke. And while he waited for his replacements to come in, he had to navigate a few days without his glasses. I have a light prescription that helps when I’m reading up close. I [...]
Coffee cup perched on the arm of the chair, I enjoy a morning on the back porch before the day heats up and August rages in with full heat. Yesterday our family went out with my brother, sister, and their respective families to celebrate a birthday. Sometimes the conversation rollicked around the table, with [...]
What can that friendly droid from everyone's favorite SciFi series teach us about speaking truth in everyday conversations? Listen to or watch Episode 62 of Presently Engaged with Mandy Pallock to discover why I think R2-D2 maybe isn't as awesome as his bio implies. What do you think?
Here's an open secret that's not even a secret if you ever happen to work out with me: A fleet-footed, swift, fluid runner I am not. I have no idea what the ever-elusive “runner’s high” even feels like. But at a community 5K, I discovered a truth that made me run faster than ever. Listen [...]
Music is food for the soul. If you find yourself spiritually lethargic or emotionally flabby, episode 60 of Presently Engaged with Mandy Pallock just might be for you. What will you put on your playlist today?
If you were to ponder that promise with the zest that Mozart applied to what we now call Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, how might your day be different? Episode 59 of Presently Engaged with Mandy Pallock is all about pondering the same truth, concept, or idea in different ways.
Making small talk in the kitchen at church one Sunday, a young man told me he had camped out the night before. We commiserated about how the unexpected cold had surprised him and how he wrapped every layer he brought around him—jeans, a flannel, and a hammock—leaving him wishing for at least one more layer [...]
With alarms set to go off at 5 am, I laid awake in bed, too excited to go back to sleep. Eclipse day! I'd read the books. I'd watched the documentaries. I'd refreshed the NASA website pages. But I'd never seen a Total Solar Eclipse. This was the day! My husband Peter and three [...]
