Inner Rose

Many years ago I worked at a place where helicopters landed on the roof. When the wind was just right, the room would fill with vapors or smoke. Asthma was exacerbated and stress and alarm skyrocketed when this continued again and again. I felt powerless. It was hard to stay work focused when health was at risk. Though many of us wrote to request change...months went by...air meters were placed and found nothing...They were even considering moving the fuel to the building top. Karen called... "I had a nightmare and you were being chased by a white helicopter." "Karen, the helicopter that lands on the roof is white!" She prayed. We prayed. "It would take hundreds of thousands of dollars to move the helicopter pad," they said. "If this is being a health consideration, perhaps you should find a different job," they said. The helicopter was moved and I did not lose my job. Alleluia! God works in mysterious ways!

Oh indeed! Yes! I need you to just come right here and set by the fire... you know I ALWAYS tell my stories best by the fire... with popcorn... and hot chocolate... and fireflies and juuuuune bugs landing on the screen... Story One...on "GRACE!" by Susan Lois Metler Henry Eleven years younger than me, my cousin, Mary, had come to us from England for a visit. GAP clothes and LEVI jeans were on her agenda. What to do what to do? We were trying to show her a good time but she was so much younger than us. What was she interested in? Finally, after trying many things, we sought to show her a good time by taking her to Jackson, MI (an hours drive) to see the light show on water which synchronized with music. Arriving early at my insistence so that we could get good seats, we sat on these blocks of cement set out especially for seating. What did I expect? I didn't know! All I knew is it was almost time and it might have started and these women seated right in front of u...

How limited we are. Sometimes our short-sightedness causes us to short-circuit or side-step our long-range vision. But our God is limitless and all-seeing. He is an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hearing and all-hearted God. 7/9/10

As intimately as a man knows a woman As intimately as a child is knit together in his mother’s womb So intimate is our Heavenly Father’s love for us. It is a deep and very personal “knowing” of the individual that reaches even deep into a person’s soul. It is the heart of the Father to know us. It is the heart of the Holy Spirit to make Himself known. It is the heart of Jesus to ever live to make intercession for us before the Father’s throne. So deeply may we trust the Father’s plan, may we trust the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. And, deeply, true, may we “know fully, even as we are fully known” with confidence that all that Jesus says He will do, He Will Rightly Accomplish within our lives. We know the Spirit of Truth. We know the Father’s love for us. We know that, through Jesus, we are fully “known”. And, as we know, it is by His Word of Truth that we are kept by His mighty and righteous right hand. 7/10/10

Sitting down to a planning meeting for a man's Human Rights candidacy in the early 70s. Youthful eyes, blue-jeaned idealism focused on the task of absorbing and understanding that for which he stood. "...to change a government you need to tear out the foundation." Seeing a picture of a block tower made just a few years ago and imagining what would happen if I removed the bottom blocks, I instantly knew there was something wrong with that picture. Starry eyed idealism changed to realism. I, at 16, knew more than someone old enough to apply for office. Now, I am old enough to know that polarization in politics tells but a part and not the whole. Leaning much further now to the right than the to the left, I still try to keep an open mind and look at both sides. One morning years ago, I clearly recall hearing up-to-the-minute, straight-from-the-horses-mouth information from Managua during the Sandinista regime. That evening, front page headlines of the Ann Arbor N...