If you study the anatomy of a book, you’ll find its chapters consists largely of suspense, as in, what’s going to happen next? Writers craft words in such a way as to keep that book in your hand so you cannot put it down until the very last word.

 I have always viewed my life as a book with each season being a chapter. However, I’ve spent most of my adult life bemoaning the fact that the past chapters of my life contained mainly horror, fear, and tragedy. It never occurred to me that such negatives build hope in the reader. After all, which of us does not have a built-in cheerleader that starts cheering whenever they encounter an underdog?

 It’s true. We all rally around those who have suffered injustice. We have a natural desire to right the wrong, to reverse the outcome or aid the victim. Many who have been ‘reading’ my life ‘chapters’ have rallied around me – even those of you who regularly read this column. I have been so blessed by many of you as I’ve written my stories on this page, month after month, year after year – can you believe I’ve been writing for the Community Word since 1998? Read the rest of this entry »

Having children doesn’t always involve diapers and new mommies don’t always have kids. Sounds like I’m heading into a metaphor, doesn’t it? You got me.

 To an empty-nester like me, motherhood is all about birthing books. Of course conception is the most fun. A thought, an idea or a dream plays around in your mind pretending to be plots and titles, scenes and scenarios. But until one germinates, it is just fantasy.

 Writers, who entertain such titillation without a commitment to capture those thoughts on paper, or to develop them into publishable means, exist with the frustration and disappointment of a dreamer.

 For years, my writing life was just that – until I got tired of staring at books and imagining my name on their spines. Read the rest of this entry »

They walked with him for three years and each had plans of where it was all going. His many references to a kingdom spurred thoughts of overthrowing the current regime and freeing their people from its tyrannical grip. Several entertained thoughts of position and rank in that kingdom. Others were occupied with the method of bringing his kingdom into power. One thought only of the money.

None comprehended their Leader’s plan. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a prominent brick house, almost stately, resting unpretentiously on a manicured corner in a fine Chicago suburban neighborhood. The medical doctor and his wife who once dwelt there raised five children and owned a dachshund named Hilde, though I called it their ‘wiener dog.’

One of the two daughters was my age and we shared the same March birthday. Ironically, her father, the doctor, did too. Each March, on the Sunday closest to our shared birth date, we gathered at their large oak table, all twelve of us – their seven and our five. Read the rest of this entry »

Millions of pens have attempted to capture love on paper – that mysterious, elusive bandit that steals our heart, messes with our mind and turns our whole world upside down.

Many have written stories of love’s power to overcome the worst its enemy can conjure. Tomes of undying love story pack dusty shelves in every corner of the world’s libraries and still cannot tell the whole.

One story, tucked away in a few paragraphs of a chapter penned by Saint Luke, tells of a love that even cupid cannot match. It’s the story of a woman who was left off the guest list to a very prominent dinner. Though few details are available, it could have happened like this:

She followed him around town all day. Shrouded to hide her identity, she kept her eye on his every move, marveling as he strongly opposed the religious leaders who challenged him at every street corner. To her, it was obvious they craved his power and that their hatred of him flowed from jealousy, so she was quite shocked when he accepted an invitation to one of their homes for dinner. They were the reason she stayed shrouded in public.

Only days ago she saw him preaching a strange new law, a law of forgiveness – a law of loving one’s enemies. In sweltering heat, a multitude had gathered on the mount where the prophet began his debut sermon. Every word from his mouth marched out with such audacity that lies fled from his presence in fear.

Rumor had it that he was a local carpenter’s son who had left his father’s business to preach the love of God and everyone was talking about his radical beliefs.

It was on that mount that hope had found her. It was in his teaching that day that she stopped running from her past and was determined to let him know how grateful she was for that freedom.

The dinner was more of a set-up than anything. The Master’s disciples were confused as to why he would even eat with those whom he so vehemently opposed, but they didn’t question him.

He had only been reclining at the Pharisee’s table momentarily when she boldly entered the home and fell, unashamed, weeping at his feet. The room grew silent. The Pharisee was appalled at the intrusion, but closely watched his guest, itching for an opportunity to trap him.

Dropping to the floor, she drew the shroud from her head and her hair fell around her shoulders as recklessly as her tears fell on his feet. She wiped them with her hair and then poured fragrant oil from an alabaster vase, anointing her Savior’s feet without a word.

The dinner host smirked.

This man, if he were a prophet, he thought, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. Little did he know he was entertaining the Son of God.

Though he knew the man’s thoughts, Jesus used an illustration to expose them and then delivered one of the timeliest truths of the universe.

“Do you see this woman?” he asked, “I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head.”

The Pharisee’s skin was red with anger as he stared into eyes of holy fire, “…but a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”

On earth we write love on paper, but God, the Author of life, writes love on hearts.

We sat on the couch in silence, though anticipation was making quite a ruckus in my heart. Hubby and I had driven three hours to get to our kid’s condo before they returned home from Vietnam with our new grandson, and he was exhausted.

Glad that we didn’t have to brave the pre-Christmas crowds at O’Hare, we raced around adjusting the thermostats in each room, plugging stuff back in, resetting the clocks and peeking out of the windows every two minutes – I should say I, not we.

I couldn’t sit still! I was minutes away from becoming a Grandma! But somehow, I got still. There was nothing left to do but wait and within the hour that we waited silently on the couch, I took the time to thank God for all the things he has done to bring me and my son to this point. Read the rest of this entry »

New pictures arrived in my e-mailbox just before Thanksgiving. There were two and the second one grabbed my heart. His face was beaming with a smile that melted me off my seat; his eyes twinkled and for some reason, through that picture he became real to me.

Just less than two years of waiting, hoping, dreaming and planning have disappeared and now there’s a real baby with a real name in a real crib waiting for his new mommy and daddy to bring him home.
Read the rest of this entry »

Twenty-eight years have disappeared from the day I gave birth to my only child. November is the month I pushed him out into this world and met him face to face. I was a teenager when he was born, unable to comprehend the miracle of his precious life - unwilling to have my self-centered lifestyle interrupted.

Thus I spent most of his childhood competing with him for attention, sometimes robbing him of what he deserved. But despite my ignorance and negligence, he grew up. He laughed and cried; he made good grades in school and even got into some trouble now and then. He charmed the waitresses and the ladies at church and stole his Grandma’s heart. Read the rest of this entry »

I was on my way home the other day when I noticed an arm dangling out of the trunk of the car in front of me. After a double-take, I chuckled at the mobile Halloween décor.

The flapping arm triggered flashes of “body-in-trunk” scenes I’ve seen in movies and it made me think how life has changed since my Trick-or-Treat days. I can still hear the howls and laughter puncturing the spooky Indian-Summer night air around my childhood neighborhood as all us kids went house-to-house gathering candy in our pillowcase bags.

I can still feel my hoarse throat from screaming through a haunted house at my church’s youth event. My brain holds a library of memories from Halloween jolts and goose bumps, fake ghouls, cold spaghetti brains and peeled grape eyeballs - but I always knew these were manufactured scare tactics so it was easy to shake. Read the rest of this entry »

Isolate “X” we are told. Get rid of everything on one side so that only X is left then figure out what X is. Only a select few, I have found, understand what X is or how to find it. Multitudes, on the other hand, have no clue how to find X, what it is, or care if they ever find it. I spent years in the latter crowd. Read the rest of this entry »