Hodge Podge
Today’s a big game day if you’re a Buckeyes fan.  We play The Team Up North. And you know what?  I’m really out of it this year, not really caring about football.  I’m struggling to keep up with my life, balancing a few balls in the air, and failing to remember when it’s Saturday and I need to have my game day face on. When I listened to the interview

Seven with Sarah Bauer
Today’s Quick Takes are all about one of my favorite musicians, Sarah Bauer. Sarah, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us today.  I have been really inspired by your music.  What inspired you to pursue music full-time? I have always loved to sing, ever since I was a little girl.  I started out singing on the fireplace for stuffed animals and that love never went away.  By the time I was in junior

Whose Will?
I read this passage this morning, and it will stick with me all day.  It’s a timely reminder as I continue to struggle with God’s will versus my will. “Our obligation is to do God’s will, and not our own.  We must remember this if the prayer that our Lord commanded us to say daily is to have any meaning on our lips.  How unreasonable it is to pray that God’s will be done, and then not promptly obey it when he calls us from this world!  Instead we struggle and resist like self-willed slaves and are brought into the Lord’s presence with sorrow and lamentation, not freely consenting to our departure, but constrained by ne

Making Diamond Castles of Old Farmhouses
One of the best things about life with my four-year-old is the surprising results of her imagination and enthusiasm mixed together. She doesn’t see the limitations of life the same way I do, and it’s a great lesson for me, though it’s also annoying at times. “Mom, our house is a diamond castle,” she’ll begin, “and the you’re a queen.”  When told that I have to make dinner, even if I am wearing an old bridesmaid gown from 2001, she’s undeterred.

Loose Sheep and Mary
I was making my morning cup of tea (the cup I make after I decide that, in fact, a third carafe of coffee will be too much), talking to a good friend on the phone.  I paused and gasped.  Being a good friend, she asked what was wrong. I laughed.  “I thought I saw the sheep getting out,” I said, and then recounted a tale from the summer of the sheep being in the front yard. Then, for some reason, I went into the laundry room, and out of the window I saw them. Out in the yard. Enjoying the lush green grass.