Sounds of Hope

I grew up in a Christian home.  My mother was a homemaker who taught children about Jesus.  My dad was a night janitor at a bank who spent most of his “leisure” time going to church service so he could learn more about Jesus. As a child, I saw my father bundle all manner of Christian reading materials – all my Sunday School quarterlies, Christian magazines, etc. – to send to his niece, my Tante Ruth, a single WOMAN who was teaching other’s about Jesus in Swaziland.  One afternoon a week, my father would take me to the Salvation Army where a wonderful WOMAN named Captain Johnson oversaw the Sunbeam program.  As a single woman, she was the “Pastor” of the congregation of Salvationists – she preached, administered, and served her corp as the sole officer.  Walking with my dad we'd often encounter Captain holding a street meeting on a corner. As a child, I read a book about Malla Moe – a single WOMAN missionary who would trek across Africa.  As I got ...

First thing in the morning, as I sit up in bed, I take my iPhone from under my pillow.  Now that I'm not working, I don't need it there as an alarm except on Sunday.  I have it there because all night it has been monitoring my sleep quality.  Last night was really good - 100%!  I have this cool little app that I got called sleep cycle.  It has the best alarm on it and it also monitors your sleep quality.  The more peaks and valleys, the better your sleep!  But this morning, before I could slide the snooze off and see my graph and numbers there were two alerts from my calendar.  Both were reminding me of the same thing - not the luncheon I'm going to later this morning but the day I could never forget.  Today is February 6, 2014.  Today is the 17th anniversary of the day our precious granddaughter went to Jesus.  I have this date set on my calendars because I never want to forget her. I never want to forget the joy of her sweet ...