The year my daughter turned thirteen, she and I stood in line in the dark in a cold, misting rain outside Target on Thanksgiving until the store opened at midnight. She had birthday money burning a hole in her pocket and I agreed to take her to one store. The aisles were lined with televisions, …
Transient
My grandson wanted to roast marshmallows over a campfire but we’ve been in a drought. My dad agreed to build the fire when we came to visit, and in God’s perfect timing, it rained the day before and the day of our visit. He added the wood to fuel the fire before we arrived. By …
Holding Onto Hope
My granddaughter is a year old and so full of life! Her parents call it energy. She’s a busy bee. She’s rarely ever still. She climbs everything and talks constantly. She and the Great Danes have an understanding. She’s the boss. She keeps up with her two year old cousin. She is so much like …
The Power Of Praise
This Sunday’s Devotion written by Caroline R. Bulman, my daughter and mother to my first grandson “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” Psalms 122:1 NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.122.1.NLT Sunday morning worship has always been a part of my life, whether in person or, more recently, online. …
Over The Top
My portacath was the last visible sign of my cancer treatment. Radiation acted on my internal organs in a way I’ll never see with my eyes. Chemotherapy traveling through my bloodstream accessed every cell in my body, targeting stray cancer cells wherever they tried to hide. Multiple scars on my abdomen are visual reminders of …
Smell The Color Nine*
What does cancer look like? What does it smell like, or taste like or feel like? To me, it feels like melting and it smells like the inside of an N95 mask during a four hour chemotherapy session. Even after I’m home and the mask is off, it’s the metallic taste that coats my tongue; …
All You Need Is One
Buzzer in hand, thumb resting on the alert button. The fingers of my other hand are waffled with my deliberately sleep-deprived teenage son’s. The minutes in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit tick on endlessly. Day one had gone more quickly with settling in, the novelty of watching pediatric floor kid tv, having forty plus leads attached …
Backward Thinking
Have you ever overheard someone’s comment and thought, “Wow! Really?” I’ll be honest, that’s my first thought when I read a lot of what’s posted on social media and in the news these days. I’m left scratching my head in amazement, seriously wondering how some people function day to day. Earlier this week, I had …
Simultaneously Present
My son and daughter-in-law and I stood on the water’s edge at the coast after dinner this week enjoying a video chat with my daughter and grandson in the mountains. He smiled as he recognized our voices and caught a glimpse of our faces. We watched as he pushed up onto hands and knees, ready …
Feel The Heat
What does pure, unadulterated faith look like, the faith of a child that Jesus commended? I saw it in the face of my eighteen year old son and heard it in his voice, as we contemplated the possibility of brain surgery after eight years of tweaking and changing medications failed to stop his seizures. I …
A Fitting Reply 