Gretchen Louise 6 Minute Read Every time I read a good work of fiction, I am reminded of why Jesus spoke in parables. I am subconsciously judging the actions being described before I realize how closely they mirror my own. I become wrapped up in the story before I realize it is about me. From Stepping Heavenward to None So Blind,…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read Have you ever picked up a maple seed just to drop it and watch it twirl gently to the ground on its own pair of wings? What if you were small enough that you could use one of those maple seeds as a whirli-gig sort of parachute for you and a pal? The Larkin are….
Gretchen Louise 7 Minute Read One of these years, I am going to try wrapping up a few books to open and read each day of Advent. This year, I felt like I was planning ahead by getting out of the box of Christmas books before Thanksgiving was past. Sometime, I’ll make a careful, chronological list of the books I want to read…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read I saw the idea on Pinterest: mis-matched silverware, bent to make wall hooks. And one of these days, I’m going to start collecting silverware from the thrift store so my husband can make me a nice long row of hooks on which I can neatly hang my growing collection of aprons. But right now, they’re a mess. All…
Gretchen Louise 7 Minute Read When my friend Sarah Mackenzie over at the Read-Aloud Revival said that The Green Ember by S.D. Smith was the one book you must read this year, I knew it better go on our wishlist. And then it came out on audiobook, read by Joel Clarkson (and oh how we love audiobooks!). My children were hooked after the one-hour audio…
Gretchen Louise 7 Minute Read As a single, I read dozens of books on relationships. But I quickly discovered that there were two types of books on love and marriage: The books that told all the depressing divorce stories, brought up every negative aspect of the differences between men and women, and then invariably told you how to have a new relationship…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read I was awakened by the phone call on September 11. I’d known it was coming. I’d even been expecting it. But that morning, it caught me by surprise. Grandpa and Grandma had celebrated their fifty-eighth wedding anniversary that Sunday. And early Thursday morning–a little over a month before his seventy-eighth birthday–they reached that moment of “death…
Gretchen Louise 8 Minute Read I first caught the vision when I heard someone share during a funeral at our church. The man’s grandson reflected on many memories, but said that the one impression that would never fade was what he saw each morning during visits to their home. He’d awake to find his grandparents sitting at the kitchen table reading the Bible…
Gretchen Louise 2 Minute Read There’s something about quiet that inspires me. The lack of noise opens my ears to the sounds I usually miss while resting me for the next onslaught of noisy activity. The calming of the world around me allows my mind to dwell on deeper things and the words to well up inside me. This is one…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read I started growing my hair out when my son was born three years ago. It had hardly been much past my shoulders since I’d chopped it off around age 13. I was ready to see what long hair felt like. I wanted to know if I would be as beautiful as those women whose long hair…
Gretchen Louise 4 Minute Read “So how is it being the mom of three kids?” My cousin asked me the question as we sat in the sunshine outside of Starbucks. She’d just spent a year as a nanny to four. And she wanted to know my secret. Because she thought I had motherhood all figured out. “Most days, I feel…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read “You want to know the secret to staying happily married?” grinned the wizened, white-haired man. “What’s that?” I asked with a laugh. This was going to be a good one, knowing him. “A few fingers in the armpits every so often,” he stated, with a twinkle in his eye. I laughed. There’s been more than…
The End.
The End.