Religion

The other day, I was talking to a coworker about how some people can predict the weather with their bodies or their arthritis, or at least knowing when a storm front is approaching. His wife developed this ability after a couple major surgeries. She was saying she felt as if a martial arts fighter had punched her in the gut really hard. He pulled up a weather radar image, showing rain on the horizon.

I love Sundays; they bring their own sense of relaxation. Sundays at our house are set aside for more time with God and each other as a family. In a sense it’s much like a mini vacation; it gives us a breath of fresh air and rejuvenation for the week ahead. Isn’t it amazing that even God rested after six days of work? His example, coupled with teachings in the Scripture, gives us a day off with no feelings of guilt about all the work waiting for us.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:”

Okay, what I would really like is an open house and host all of you for a meal, get acquainted, and the like. I know it’s impossible, but I won’t stop wishing for it. Daniel was bound and determined that we should travel to Ohio or somewhere closer to you to allow me to meet you. He was going to make it happen by this year, but plans have changed since he went to heaven. We’ll see what comes together- one day.

Opening the mailbox back in late April, letters filled it up on this particularly heavy mail day. Nestled in the very back corner and folded into the many letters though sat an envelope. The envelope had a handwritten address on the outside and a neatly embossed return address in the front top corner. This envelope was by no means junk. It was important.

Owning sheep has been a dream of mine for years.

A gravestone isn’t something I ever gave much thought to, it’s something I thought was distant and in the future, but events last year changed that.

I read a book a long time ago called “Praying Our Goodbyes” by Joyce Rupp, OSM. That book has never left me. At the time I was facing a change in my life. I was having to say goodbye to something that was very familiar and turn to something that was completely unfamiliar. Sometimes, I think we stay in an uncomfortable, unhealthy situation because at least it is known. Knowing is better than not knowing or at least it is predictable.

My heart was warmed. How special, a gift from my boyfriend. It was 14 years ago and I was spending time with Daniel and his family. The stone he had bought for me was a treasure; it bore the words, “After the storm comes the rainbow.” At that point in my life there were not many storms. Life was good, I was in love and waiting for the day I would be Mrs. Daniel Yoder.

When someone walked into my house growing up, it was hard for them not to notice the large set of World Book Encyclopedias that graced the shelves just inside our front door. No one ever accused us of being bibliophiles with book-covered walls, but we had enough books on a few shelves to keep me and my siblings piqued with curiosity. Nothing drew our interest as much as the standard (for the time) World Books that every home seemed to own back then (though a few of my more bourgeois friends had the more exotic Encyclopedia Britanica.)