The eclipse was two weeks ago today, and I’m still thinking about it. Smiling. Feeling so thankful that we got to be a witness to the beautiful spectacle of it all.

In the hours leading up to the beginning of the eclipse – those morning moments before any tiny portion of the sun was covered – the moon is totally invisible. Not there. No hazy blue and white daylight moon. Nothing. So that first time I put on the protective glasses it was because my research told me that it was time, not because of anything I could see. Yes! There’s a hint of black at the sun’s edge. While I understand the science of this, it’s still a surprise. For the next hour or so, the blackness slowly advances. Silently. Slowly. The world without the glasses on begins to look different. The light changes. The world around becomes dimmer, but in a substantially different way than when it’s cloudy or stormy. The light is diminished. The air cools. Birds quiet, head off to their roosts. The closer to totality, the odder the world appears. Then. Darkness.

I’ve been anticipating this moment for weeks, I understand the process. Yet, somewhere deep inside I am afraid. I’m cold and cut off. I hold my breath, hoping.  My eyes well up with unplanned tears as I stare at the heavens. I reach for Karl’s hand. Though my world is now unwillingly, uncontrollably plunged into darkness, the sun refuses to be vanquished. The bright circle of the sun’s corona remains. For three and a half minutes I take quick glances at the horizon, the stars, the scudding clouds, but I can’t take my eyes for long from the thick black circle ringed with silvery light.

Then miraculously a ray of light shoots out, breaking the dark, severing the hold of blackness. I cheer. Nearly instantly, the birds, who had gone completely silent, begin twittering from the tree tops. In mere minutes the day returns and within an hour we are back to normal. But also changed. Total eclipses of the sun are relatively rare and we celebrate them. Eclipses of the heart and soul, sadly, not so rare. Often the dark smudge begins imperceptibly – an unseeable moon against a blue sky. A seemingly innocuous choice, perhaps even one with good intent, that honors something other than Him. The blockage from God is unnoticeable at first, but eventually the light changes, perception changes, attitudes and lives are changed. As the eclipse continues, the eyes of our hearts adjust, accept. The darkness comes and instead of looking upward in hope, we retreat like the birds, satisfied when the automatic night lights click on. If we keep our heads down and become accustomed to the dark, we miss the corona, the hope, the assurance that pain has a purpose, trials and darkness can strengthen us and grow us. The hope that we need not stay in the darkness. With our heads down, we miss His glory, His provision, the hope He provides

Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and, in the world’s estimation, a highly respected scientist and professor.  He is, perhaps, most well-known for his outspoken atheism. Dawkins has been a loud voice for atheists and scientists for many decades. In his 2006 book called The God Delusion, Dawkins claimed that a supernatural creator ‘almost certainly’ does not exist and that religion is a delusion. He went so far as to say “Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”

Since Dawkins relies solely on science and what can be scientifically proven, his stance is that there is no proof for God’s existence.

On Easter Sunday, Dawkins was a guest on a British radio station called LBC with host Rachel Johnson. The focus of the interview was Johnson’s desire to hear Dawkin’s views on the dwindling influence of Christianity and the rise of Islam in Britain. In addressing the question, Dawkins described himself as a “cultural Christian” and asserted that “I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.” Though careful to voice that he does not “believe a single word of the Christian faith” he went on in the interview to expound how he appreciates how Christianity advances community, security, and prosperity for all people and that living in a Christian country is much preferable to living in an Islamic one. He described Christianity as a  “Fundamentally decent religion… in Africa for example where you have missionaries of both faiths, I’m on team Christian.”

The interview is interesting in that while he continued to call the beliefs of Christianity nonsense, Dawkins had no trouble identifying the way that God’s influence on believers shapes the values and behavior of the society in which it is prevalent.

It’s ironic that Dawkins has rejected the existence of God because he can’t prove that existence, yet he himself acknowledges that the God’s influence on His followers emits goodness and behaviors that he himself values. Isn’t that proof?

For more read: “World Famous atheist loves attributes of Christian faith he loves to mock” by Parrish Alford, American Family News  AFN.net April 2, 2024 and watch the Dawkins interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COHgEFUFWyg

Honestly, it doesn’t matter the lengths the world goes to in attempting to validate human lies. There is nothing in anyone’s agenda, from the president’s on down, that can change the Eternal Certainty that Jesus, through His crucifixion and His glorious resurrection has offered the world redemption through faith. Sin, my sin and yours, was nailed to that cross. Jesus took on that sin and paid the price because of His perfect love for us.

Celebrating Easter reminds us that the battle is won, we need only to believe.

Transitioning March 31^st, 2024 into a celebration of something other than Jesus’ resurrection irritates me, sure, but be certain it doesn’t change anything.

It can’t trans-form reality.  

Truth rose on Easter Sunday.

The house is quiet and I’ve been at the computer writing on book four of Emmaline’s Story since about eleven o’clock. Karl is gone to work. The clicking of my keyboard keeps me company. So, why am I laughing out loud?

Here’s the scene.  I’m writing away. In my story, Martin is thinking of painting the shed he uses to house his chickens. I’m not the best speller of homophones, (complement and compliment vex me every time!)  so when I’d decided to call the shed a chicken c**p, I had to stop.  Is it coop or coup?  I wasn’t sure. So, I clicked over to the internet and typed in my question to google.

Here’s the answer that immediately popped up:

A coop is where chickens get shelter from bad weather and predators. Without a hyphen, the word co-op, which is short for co-operative organization, turns into coop. That can be confusing to chickens because they don’t know if they will have meetings or a safe place to lay eggs.

Coop – Definition, Meaning & Synonyms – Vocabulary.com

Ha!  Don’t you love it when something rises itself above the mundane and serious to make you laugh? I just had to share!  Have a great day!

My copies of Retaining Hope arrived Saturday!  I think you are going to like this third book in Emmaline’s story.  Emmaline, Graham, Maud and Sunny are off to England. The holiday/honeymoon starts off well as Maud and Thad are reunited and Graham’s family graciously welcomes them. The couple soon realizes that post-WW1 England is struggling, but even then, they find ways to enjoy themselves. When Emmaline’s fear of losing Sunny becomes a real threat everything changes…

Retaining Hope is available on Amazon in eBook and print versions. If you’d like one signed, I’d be happy to mail you one right away. Books are $15 and (thank the post office) shipping is now $4. Just message me or leave me a comment and I’ll get them in the mail right away!

The weather forecast is calling for wind chills between MINUS FORTY AND MINUS FIFTY this weekend.

Dear God, Thank you for the gas stove in the basement, my warm bodied husband to snuggle me, and for a sewing project! Amen.

We received a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas this year. (Thanks Sam and Allison!) I’m not much of a puzzle do-er, my spatial awareness is lacking on good days, but since it was there, we decided to give it a go. And it was tough going. Firstly, this puzzle is laser cut on wood, and the thick pieces are oddly shaped and unexpected. Next, the picture provided with the puzzle was very small and not very detailed, so as we progressed, we had to guess sometimes, especially when the same colors swirled at random spots throughout the whole. Then, there was a bit of a curveball since the edge pieces afforded us no comfort and very little help. Only the two side edges were straight, the top is arched and the bottom scalloped. 

Sheesh.

But we soldiered on through the difficulties. And finished it!

I was admiring our work on New Year’s Day, feeling pretty cocky that we’d done it. Then it hit me: Facing a new year is akin to slowly completing a jigsaw puzzle. The expectations we have may be nebulous and undetailed, giving us little guidance about choices and connections. We’ve not a clue about where the edges will reach or what boundaries will show up. Slowly though, with some perseverance, a lot of patience, and holding tight to the trust that the Maker has indeed supplied us with all the pieces we need to achieve a finished product, we can walk through a year, or a moment, or a relationship, or a life with purpose and hope.

May your 2024 be filled with the wonder of discovery, with finding new ways to fit it all together, and with joy at what is revealed.

                August is a glorious month filled with picnics and sunshine. Except. For a few, August is wrenching and painful.  I’m thinking about moms today.  Moms who have spent the last nineteen or so years of their lives devoted mainly to one thing: raising their babies.  Moms who are this month caught up in the pride and excitement and joy of outfitting their youngest child with comforters and towel sets, a great wardrobe, books, and lessons on budgeting while fighting the silent pain of saying goodbye.

                You can tell yourself over and over how happy you are for your daughter, whose eyes are filled with the future and the college of her aspirations, but when she finally drives away, or walks through security without you, there are absolutely no words to describe the desolation a mom is left with. And yes, if a mom has been through this with her older children, she understands a bit of that pain, but no mom, no matter how prepared she thinks she is, is quite ready for what she feels when the youngest leaves.

My heart remembers the emptiness of rooms, the quiet of evenings, the grievous sanity of mornings without chaos or last minute lost homework, the blankness of the family calendar. Budget hours for laundry only to find it is done without a blink. Buy your usual amount of cookies, or chips, or those certain cheese sticks she loves, then watch them pile up, uneaten in the fridge. Quiet reigns – becomes your nemesis. There’s no PTA meeting to rush to, no bleacher or theater seat waiting for you. Now you have time to bewail the fact that she is gone, and that all your babies have flown, and the hole in your heart and your days becomes a vast universe of emptiness.  You ask yourself: Who am I now, after I’ve given everything to be the best mom I can be and now when that’s no longer who I am?

To the mom out there who will watch her last fledgling fly this month, please know I am praying for you, thinking often of you.  It will get easier. The pain will ease.  As Gramma would say, “This, too, shall pass.”

I grew up standing up on the front seat of our Studebaker with only my mom’s arm to protect me when she hit the brakes.  When my children were babies, I held them while we drove (sometimes when I drove!) Later, they had booster seats so they could see out the window.  From the time they could sit up, I did insist they use a seat belt, it was a non-negotiable. Note: everyone survived.

Now, you have my personal background story and you will be able to understand better the complete bafflement Karl and I encountered yesterday while trying to install a ‘rear-facing child safety restraint system’ in my car in anticipation of my lovely bonus daughter and grandson’s visit this week.  It very quickly became clear we were in over our heads.  Just figuring out how to loosen the straps that will hold Jamie in the seat took us a good fifteen minutes, and we will only really know if I truly got the concept later today when we pick them up from the airport.

The car seat book, which had well over 200 pages, devoted lots of space to cautions and warnings and for diagrams and pictures and accompanying explanations about installation and use that did absolutely nothing at all in regards to helping us figure out what to do. I’m certain that the complete how to explanation is included within the pages, but just not in a linear, step by step format that was accessible to laymen with our talents and expertises.

We worked for about an hour. I read aloud while Karl attempted to decipher the instructions, then we’d trade places. We checked the car’s owner’s manual as suggested, which added a whole new dimension of befuddlement.   Then, in a spark of what I think was probably Divine Mercy, we decided we needed help.  Off to the fire department we drove. Thank God for the Cheyenne Fire Department and a fireman named Chris who has been schooled on car seat installation. Filled with grace and best practices, in about half an hour the seat was properly installed and we were educated in car seat safety.  In reality, it wasn’t that hard, not nearly as complicated as the book made it out to be. 

So yay!  I’m off to the airport.