I held my breath and waited. I wanted to watch, but I was too anxious, so I distracted myself—while keeping my ears fully tuned in.  The broadcaster’s voice was calm as he used terms like peak-heating, true-test of the calculated trajectory, and plasma build-up on the heat-shield. I paced.  While it was only a short period of communications blackout, it seemed like an eternity.  I held my breath as the narrator counted down the final seconds. Then Mission Control called out,

Who knew cleaning out a closet would be so hard? I’ve been retired for almost five years and have been procrastinating when it came to purging my work clothes. Since dust has now settled on the hangers of unworn clothing, I knew it was time to deal with it. Yet, I wasn’t expecting to stand in the midst of my wardrobe, face-to-face with unexpected emotions. And, my first thought was to blame my mother—not really—but well, maybe…sorta.   She’s the reason I have so many clothes.

“Lord, I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here—on Waikiki Beach—as a guest of the Moana Surfrider Hotel!”  I inhaled slowly, breathing in the salty air on the picture-perfect July morning.  It truly was a dream come true, something that only God could have orchestrated.    As a teenager in the late 1970s, when my father was stationed on Oahu, my friends and I would take the bus to Honolulu and spend our summer days roaming the streets of Waikiki.  We enjoyed people-watching

Last night in my writer's group, I was asked to give the devotion. While this was written toward writers, it applies to all of us. As a Christ followers, we're all charged to tell our stories—to share our testimonies of God's love. I’m not an orderly writer with a detailed outline of how my story will flow. I’m a pantser. While I do have an idea where I want the story to go—a target destination and key points I want to address—the storyline always takes on a life of its own.

After years of hanging silently on my dining room wall, I restarted my grandfather’s old cuckoo clock. The clock had hung on the den wall at my grandparent’s house until my grandfather moved in the early 1980s; then he gave it to me. By that time, after decades of faithfully chirping out the hour, the little ol’ cuckoo had pipe and bellow issues and sounded like it was gasping for breath.  So I found a clock repairman and the birdie got a lung transplant. Over the years, I’v

As a child, one thing was certain with each family visit back to the east coast: the adults would sit around and talk about the days-gone-by.  Even at a young age, I was nostalgic and treasured the glimpses into a world I could only imagine.  I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point, I became a part of the stories told. Even today, one of the things I enjoy most when I gather with family is to listen to—and tell—those stories.  Stories of moments in time when

The year was 1999.  I’d returned to Hawaii for my 20 th  high school reunion.  After a busy weekend of laughter and fun, I’d finally made it back to the beach where I’d spent most of my time: North Beach on Marine Corp Base Hawaii. I stood at the top of the hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, taking it all in. The late afternoon sunlight painted the water a silvery-blue and diamond-like sparkles danced on the rolling surf. Little had changed over the decades.  A narrow, sandy