To our precious readers, we wish you a blessed Labor Day...  Love to you,  Emilie, LuAnn, Julie and Sally

Our besetting sin is to hurry, and the remedy is to turn aside: I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small fieldfor a while, and gone my wayand forgotten it. But that was the pearlof great price, the one field that hadthe treasure in it. I realize nowthat I must give all that I haveto possess it. Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering afteran imagined past. It is the turningaside like Moses to the miracleof the lit bush, to a brightnessthat seemed as transitory as your youthonce, but is the eternity that awaits you. R. S. Thomas (1913–2000) was an Anglo-Welsh poet and Anglican priest who lived in Wales and served in small rural parishes with his wife, the artist Mildred "Elsi" Eldridge. Yet Thomas insists that life is found when we, like Moses, turn a...

Poem by Helen Steiner Rice Our Father knows what's best for us, So why should we complain We always want the sunshine, But He knows there must be rain We love the sound of laughter And the merriment of cheer, But our hearts would lose their tenderness If we never shed a tear... Our Father tests us often With suffering and with sorrow, He tests us, not to punish us, But to help us meet tomorrow... For growing trees are strengthened When they withstand the storm, And the sharp cut of a chisel Gives the marble grace and form... God never hurts us needlessly, And He never wastes our pain For every loss He send to us Is followed by rich gain... And when we count the blessings That God has so freely sent, We will find no cause for murmuring And no time to lament... For our Father loves His child...

"No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around..." May Crandall, Before We Were Yours The new slalom ski sliced through the water spraying water all over my face. I laughed and vigorously shook my soaked head to see better. It was fast and it was fun. Little did I know that in a few minutes, my summer would be flipped upside down. My daughter continued to give me the thumbs up as I cut back and forth, seeing what this new ski would do. My hubby moved his arm up and down to warn me of big waves coming. I wasn't worried. I had hit plenty of those doing water sports through the years. The waves hit. My ski pushed right and forward but the stiff new boot ...

Carrying on after Julie's rested words and response to presence last week, I too was deeply moved by an experience I had last weekend. Aren't there so many spiritual truths availableto us in our everyday lives that have the potential to nourish our souls? It seems to me that in simply observing our lives we are met with so much wisdom and learning. My prayer, even as Iwrite this blog, is that you might draw on your life and listen to the still small voice in the midst of creation and your experiences. That you might know another facet to God's heartbeat and how His presence is constant.So, back to my experience last weekend. I visited some friends for a quick one-night camping trip, and they were pitched right beside a vast wheat field. I had been hoping to capture a wh...