Early death in Victorian America was an experience few families escaped.  The grieving heart was often susceptible to the superstitions of the day. With most deaths occurring at home, mirrors were draped in dark cloth so that no one could see their reflection for a time and be taken along ...

Bessie Pease Gutmann’s illustrations graced the covers of many of America’s early magazines such as McCall’s and Woman’s Home Companion. Bessie painted lovely images of babies and young children, capturing their innocence and purity in soft shades of blue and pink. Her own dear children, Alice, Lucille, and John, were ...

Think of everything our hands do.  Some hands create beautiful art with a paintbrush, others prepare delicious foods that bring others joy, and some take yards of fabric and turn them into lovely dresses or fine suits. Whatever someone’s hands can create, God is the Giver of the gifts that ...

During the summer months of the 1940’s and 50’s many towns were filled with empty swimming pools and deserted playgrounds. These rites of passage for American children were still there, waiting to be enjoyed.  But something else was there, too.  Polio was an invisible enemy that targeted mostly little ones ...

At the edge of the yard on my dad’s property grew a large bed of vibrant orange tiger lilies. Every year as early summer came, they popped up and opened toward the sky. They were not just another patch of old-fashioned flowers; they had been planted 60 years before by ...

Happiness bubbles up quickly when things are going well, yet it is a fickle feeling that plummets just as quickly. Joy is something deeper– an assurance of what will be,  because God has promised it. The tides of life that sweep happiness away cannot steal true joy from the soul. ...

My dad really saved things—old gas receipts from 1960, the bill for my sister’s birth in 1968 ($160), his yearbook from 1947, and a war ration booklet from 1942 that belonged to my grandfather.  Ration booklets held stamps that Americans had to shop with to purchase rationed items such as ...

Before a girl’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. (Esther 2:12) A Christian friend uses free Line app to lead Bible study and ...

I think about why Covid-19 epidemic comes to the world. Is it for Christians to preach good news more eagerly? Is it God wants to save more lost souls? Recently I prayed through Zoom with my Moms in Prayer group. I heard a mom giving thanks to God for a ...

Most of us cannot remember a time when we have seen our daily lives halted as we are seeing today. It is truly a time of trial for our country, and our world, as this invisible virus continues to make people ill.   This new germ keeps us on edge, along ...