The Trip of a Lifetime

I awoke with an anxious heart, wondering why I felt trepidation in leaving for Florida. I hadn’t seen family there in six months. This was my time to have extended time with them. I’ve always looked forward to every opportunity to make this trip. I didn’t get it. The flights were two short legs into…

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Joy in Verse Blog – “Deep”

Life flows shallowly the way the world operates these days. Is there depth in your relationships? Are you satisfied to wade in the shallow water or are you willing to go deeper for meaning and purpose? I floated through more than 30 years of my life, letting currents carry me where they would. When I…

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Are you listening to lies?

Don’t Listen to the Lies How long have I listened to the lies of the deceiver? I do it, heaven knows even though I’m a believer. He catches me at moments of doubt, Capitalizing on my forgetting what I’m about. He sneaks in through the cracks in my armor To reach me, try to convince…

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Full Circle

This is the final poem in my first collection, entitled Findings: My Journey to Joy. The flow of poems in that book spoke to finding who I was and what I was about after being divorced. I started writing the poems a couple years before the divorce, and published the book a couple years afterwards,…

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Oh Christmas Tree

  The tree lights chase the shadows and glint off the hanging ornaments. The kids run to see it, like those who ran to be at Jesus’ knee. The world, changing their focus, keeps them looking down at the carefully wrapped gifts beneath the tree. Imagine yourselves seated around the tree. Take a break, move…

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Place of Honor

I love the recent weather and how the colorful leaves play against the most amazingly blue fall sky. I love the reds and golds that pop out just after a morning rain. Needless to say, that is why I loved my ‘sidewalk’ time on Saturday morning. The patches of partially evaporated rain on the concrete…

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You Knew

  Have you seen Jesus? No, wait, have you really seen Him? Have you wrapped your head, heart and soul around what He has done for us? Nothing brings history alive better than re-enacting it. My church presented “Behold the Lamb” some years ago. I played Anna, the prophetess who prayed outside the temple constantly…

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Under Beauty

  We’ve all heard the urge for us to stop and smell the roses, to take time out of our overloaded schedules to see the beauty around us. I concur whole-heartedly with the importance of pausing to do that, but do I recognize the full story behind all that I see? I had to get…

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The Strand

  My generation listened to Frank Sinatra singing “I Did It My Way,” and the “NOW” ideas on liberated living. Women of my era took the bait and tried becoming supermom. I didn’t fair too well trying to follow that path. I wonder how those choices are panning out among others my age. I learned…

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Tribute

My father fought in WWII in the European theater. Many of the men who went over with him didn’t come back with him. I never heard him talk about the worst of his experiences during the war, though I know he saw great tragedy. This poem was written as a tribute to thank those who…

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