My Lovely Dwelling Place

Behind and Before I volunteered recently to share yet another devotional, this time with our homeschool group in honor of our last meeting for this school year.  It would be a mixed crowd of young people and their parents.  Then I started thinking, what could I possibly say that anyone would be interested in hearing?  I wanted these kids and their parents, to know how much God loves them – how well He knows them – how much He is invested in them.  Then I started to remember what life was like for me some thirty-seven years ago.             I wasn’t the happiest sixteen year-old.  I didn’t grow up in a Christian home.  I certainly wasn’t homeschooled.  My dad was absent most of the time, and my mom was emotionally abusive.  I wasn’t a bad kid, but I wasn’t anything special either.  I was prone to depression.             ...

I Remember Mama Everyone has a story.  What we do, how we see the world, how we react to our circumstances have a great deal to do with our story.  I’ve been thinking about my mom lately.  The things she used to do and say, her life – her story. She would have been ninety-two this year.  She didn’t have an easy life, maybe no one does.  She lived in perilous times, maybe we all do.  I remember an old radio on a shelf that my mom could tune to get French stations.  She would sing loud, with windows open so the neighbors could hear as she sang those French love songs.  The neighbors called her Frenchie, go figure. My mom was born in Le Havre, France.  She had a troubled childhood.  Her father committed a crime before she was born, so her early years were spent with her grandparents under a cloud of shame.  Later when her sister was born, she lived with her mother and step-dad.  She was resentful and gave them trouble...