Category: trust

The Tale of Two Towers

Two “tower” options…which would you prefer? An 11-day visit to Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle and all-you-can-eat meals on a week-long riverboat cruise up the Seine. Or a 12-day stay at Pottstown Hospital-Tower Health, including 10 days without eating or drinking, an NG tube, a PICC line and a bowel resection. …

Continue reading

What Happened when I Didn’t Feel Thankful

Struggles and afflictions in life produce an assortment of emotions…thankfulness is not usually one of them. In 1990 when I found out my cells had gone awry and allowed cancer to grow inside me, gratefulness was about the last thing I felt. But I kept thinking about the Bible verse to “give thanks in all …

Continue reading

“Poop Happens!”

When our oldest daughter was six months old, we took her on a two-week car trip out West with my parents and she was a model passenger…well, almost. I had just finished nursing Danielle while riding in the backseat (back before that was deemed unsafe!) and was holding her in my lap when she let …

Continue reading

Why We Don’t Lose Heart

A few years ago when my grandson Ben was only 3, we chatted while browsing my wedding album from 1973. ME: Do you know who that is? BEN: Grandma. ME: That’s right. Grandma when I was young. BEN: Why you turn out not young anymore? ME: That’s the same thing I’ve been wondering.   “Where …

Continue reading

The Goodness of God and the “Badness” of Life

The other morning as I listened to CeCe Winans belt out the song “The Goodness of God,” I suddenly had flashbacks of “bad” things I’ve experienced in my nearly seven decades of living. A Mother’s Day miscarriage. A life-threatening cancer diagnosis. Untimely deaths of dear friends. Painful turmoil in churches. Addiction crises ending in suicides. …

Continue reading

Are you in control or out of it?

For me, the best part of playing FreeCell Solitaire is that every single game is winnable because I can use CRTL-Z! You know what CTRL stands for, right? CONTROL! I’m in control and if the game gets out-of-control and I might lose, I simply undo some of my moves until  everything turns out the way I …

Continue reading

Dancing for “Stable”: My oncologist has cancer (Part 10)

STABLE. As an adjective, Merriam-Webster defines it as “not changing or fluctuating” and gives it synonyms like firm, solid, steady, secure, fixed and strong. Those words have positive connotations and especially when applied to a disease not considered curable. Like the very large, very rare, neuroendocrine carcinoma of thymus origin lurking behind the heart of …

Continue reading

The Queen of Recycling

Probably not many people outside of my immediate family know this, but…I am the Queen of Recycling! Yes, it’s true. I attained this title by memorizing what’s recyclable and then fanatically making sure nothing gets missed. I even bring home all the plastic containers from fast-food restaurants so I can rinse and toss everything into …

Continue reading

Shock, Despair, Peace and Hope

Last year when my friend Carolyn took ornaments off the Christmas tree, she wondered what changes would come to her family before she unpacked them again. Never could she have imagined what 2022 would bring. But neither could she have foreseen what God was going to supply for one of the most difficult years of …

Continue reading

God’s Answer to My Unrealistic Prayer

I distinctly remember a day in August 1980 as one of the saddest of my then 26-year-old life. My husband and I, our two little girls in our arms, watched the moving van pull away with all our worldly belongings. Tears streamed as I said goodbye to my dearest friend, Gigi, her husband George and …

Continue reading