After each one of my five children was born, I prayed that God would at least let me live until they were adults. I’m 88 years old, my oldest child is retired, and I’m blessed to have great-grandchildren. Did God answer that prayer or what?! We’re gr…
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Nearly 20 years ago, my dad’s older brother, my Uncle Dillon, told me a story when we were together for Christmas that’s never left my mind. It was the 1960s and Uncle Dillon, a Catholic, had just started seeing a Lutheran girl from school. They eac…
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I know I’m not alone in saying this: It can be really difficult to choose a Christmas present for someone else, unless that person is a child, of course, in which case anything spelled T-O-Y has pretty good odds of being perfect. Some of us lose slee…
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St. Paul member, Deb James, reflects on her career as a mental health counselor and how she uses the gifts God gave her to help others. A theme that runs through Deb James’ life is stepping in to fill a need. Deb and her husband Joe, both retired men…
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Ten years ago, only a small percentage of people had heard the word “Advent,” and even fewer had used an Advent calendar. Most of these early calendars helped count down the days to Christmas and told the story of Jesus. Every day a little door opene…
Gratitude to me is not only understanding and acknowledging the blessings in your life but carrying the appreciation of those blessings forward into others’ lives. I’m so grateful that I’ve been given the life I have been given and the people I get t…
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Last week, we had an electrician working at our house. More specifically, we’d called to have someone look at the outlet on the outside of our house. All of our outdoor Christmas lights were plugged into this particular outlet and then one evening, f…
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Editors who are good at titling articles and books look for attention-grabbing headlines. They want to persuade readers to read on. A favorite book title on my bookshelf comes from poet and friend Luci Shaw: The Crime of Living Cautiously. You don’t…
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Today, or sometime this week, many of us will pause to observe Thanksgiving. We will reflect on the blessings we can count in our lives. We will take a break from the humdrum patterns of daily life and from the persistent intrusions of bad news into…
As long as we’ve known each other, we’ve liked to throw a party. Whether it is a birthday, wedding, baptism, or even just celebrating a day that ends in “y”, we love to invite people into our home and share food, fun, and fellowship. Sharing our boun…
St. Paul members Mike and Amy Paustian view themselves as caretakers of the family farmland, caring for the soil and creating opportunities for future generations of farmers. Turning in just past the big blue diesel tank of the world’s largest truck…
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Earlier this fall, Mike Fitz was sitting at his computer gazing at a webcam streaming from Katmai National Park near Kodiak, Alaska. The stationary camera has been in place for years and often catches bears or other animals meandering around the pict…