8thMo. 2024 Blog Posts (4)

In 1992, eight years after Mom died, my husband and I moved to Casper, Wyoming, where I’d grown up and where my widowed father still lived. By 1995, we had two children, and I often thought about how much Mom would have enjoyed her grandchildren.

But our move to Casper turned out to be lethal to my relationship with my father. If we’d lived elsewhere, possibly I wouldn't have noticed as much as I did. At 72, he still got his fun from…

Imagine bypassing an episode of excruciating emotional pain; not through your own efforts but by the foresight and wisdom of God. Ever since this occurred in my life, I’ve paused before every petitionary prayer, remembering that I don’t want to ask for something useless or worse.

It began in my childhood with my alcoholic father and enabler mother. To those not raised in a household ruled by an inexorable drug addiction, it’s difficult to…

Part Four, Selected beliefs

If there ever was a Bible-believing couple, it was Ernest and his wife. During the year I attended church with them, I observed how heavily they relied on the Bible, and how often they quoted favorite passages.

As I read the Bible myself, and also became attracted to the early Friends, Ernest and his wife’s constant Scripture quoting bothered me. But I couldn't put my finger…

Part Three, Stuck in sin

Ernest couldn't control his behavior. He became angry with his family, especially his 2-year-old son, and suffered regular bouts of regret and shame.

At church he came forward at almost every altar call I witnessed, wanting prayer for his most recent lapses. It was clearly an unbreakable cycle and, many years later I saw the tragedy of one of the basic doctrines of almost all…