View from the sheepfold
Christmas Joy
Last weekend proved to be a challenging one for us. Our plans for Saturday were quickly changed when my husband discovered a broken water pipe beneath our mobile home. Do you know how hard it is to find a plumber who will come to your house on a Saturday, even for an...
Christmas Advent Tradition
What traditions or activities during Advent add meaning to your celebration of Christ's birth? The church in which I grew up did not celebrate the season of Advent. We had the Sunday school Christmas play, the choir cantata, and Sunday school lessons and sermons about...
Family and Immigrants
FAMILY AND IMMIGRANTS Today is my mother’s 105th birthday. Born in 1914, she is the child of immigrant parents. Her mother came to the United States with her family from a mountain village in northern Italy. Her father, a native of Cornwall, England,...
Facing Fear
What do you fear most? Failure Ridicule Rejection The dark Snakes or spiders, or both Dealing with the past Death Something else Although there are persons we may call fearless, most people fear something. Often fear is healthy because it keeps us out of trouble. For...
Do You Follow the Plans?
While working on a current sewing project, I discovered I had not followed the instructions correctly. I had to remove some stitches and insert some steps I had missed before. This wasn’t a major problem, but it took time and patience to correct it. If I hadn’t made...
Seeking Answers
Do You Have Questions Left Unanswered? Not knowing often makes life more difficult. We seek the answers to our questions about life, questions about loss, disaster, misfortune, or illness. Finding the answers may help us process life’s challenges, sorrow, and...
Bathtub Races and a President?
BATHTUB COMMEMORATION In Moravia, N.Y., a small town on the south end of Owasco Lake in central New York, is Fillmore Glen State Park, named in honor of Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth president of the United States. Fillmore, elected vice president in 1849, became...
Forty-Six Years and Counting
July 14, 1973, our wedding day. We had met a year before, and he asked me to marry him. We had set the date and place, asked the pastor to marry us, and been through the required premarital counseling sessions. We had chosen our...
Family Musings
Summer—a time for picnics, vacations, and family reunions. I enjoy attending family reunions because it’s the only time I connect with some of my relatives, and I like being with family. I must confess, however, as each new generation appears, I lose track of who...
The Truth About Happily-Ever-After
THE TRUTH ABOUT HAPPILY-EVER-AFTER When God created Adam and Eve, He also instituted marriage. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) Because the two are now one, Jesus said,...
Roots That Run Deep
If you enjoy having plants in your home, as I do, you know they have basic needs: light, moisture, food, air, and heat. The plant variety determines how much of each it needs. Although there are plants that grow without soil, such as air plants, most plants need soil...
It’s Easy to Forget
Unless I have a personal reason to remember a person or an event, it's easy to forget. People and events from the past are often crowded out in my mind by life now. With each generation, details of history are dropped from history books to be replaced by more current...
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