Blog Archives

Helen Corbett is one of four CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) residents at Northeast Georgia Medical Center serving hospitals in Gainesville and Braselton.  The others are Dallas Thompson, Donald Retemiah, and Zach Lauersdorf. Under Trey Morrison's supervision, these...

All Saints Sunday November 1, 2020 Today is All Saints Day.  This is a day that we set aside to give God thanks for the people that have gone before us and have lived lives of faith. This is not an easy day because we long to be with those who are no longer physically...

The Christian church celebrated the breath of God on Pentecost Sunday (May 31), while our nationbegan to grieve and pour out its anger over George Floyd’s death, a man who was refused his breath until he died. We must not lose sight, because of the violence and...

I had a conversation with a bird last week. I'm not Dr. Dolittle, although my wife calls me that sometimes when it comes to doing housework. I asked, "Mr. Bird, why are you singing so much?" He said, "It's springtime, don't you know?" I said, "Yes, but people are...

Signs of spring are slowly arriving.  The buttercups are opening up.  The rose bushes are covering their thorny stems with new leaves.  Trees will soon begin to bud and pollen will begin to fall. Robins will arrive. It will not be long before hummingbirds make their...

Outside of your family, who would you name as the most important person in the world? Let's imagine you have been chosen to honor that person by preparing or by having a meal prepared for him or her.  Also, you are invited to dine with that person. Imagine the time...

It was a warm sunny day in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1962. John F. Kennedy stood before 40,000 people in the Rice University football stadium to deliver a speech that helped launch American astronauts to the moon. Most Americans were not convinced that we...

Not long ago, I needed to water some plants in my backyard.   Mia, my granddaughter, was over for a visit and she wanted to help. I felt a little bit like Tom Sawyer, handing that hose over to her, but I didn’t have to convince her that it wasn’t every day that a...

We have a golf cart at our church that the staff uses to move around campus on occasions. It can sit for several days, sometimes for a week or more before we use it. That's long enough for wasps to find it be a suitable home for their home. Last week I told our office...

I Need to Be More Like My Dog Our thirteen-year-old Labrador Retriever, Dixie, died a couple of years ago. We loved our dog! She was a part of our family when our boys were teenagers. After she died, it was the first time in almost 30 years that we had no children and...

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most respected leaders of modern history. Despite being a Hindu, Gandhi admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. Gandhi’s rejection of Christianity grew out of an incident that happened when he was a young man...

Standing beneath a tent beside a freshly dug grave on a very hot May afternoon, I listened to the granddaughter of the deceased read the 23rdPsalm. After sharing how she would remember her grandfather, she comforted her family with words beyond her years that...

When I was a boy, my grandfather worked twelve hours a day pushing dirt with a bulldozer.  When he came home, he was tired to the bone. After he ate his supper, he collapsed in a chair, pulled off his boots, and sat down and watched Walter Cronkite share what had...

Susan Sparks is a breast cancer survivor.  A nurse where she was tested for cancer told her that the Lord would take care of her. Susan reacted with sarcasm, “I think the Lord should have started a little earlier in taking care—like a couple of years ago when these...

During the last month, our church veterans have been turning in their photographs. Most have given me pictures in their uniforms from their early days in service. Dennis Elrod actually took a current picture in his old Navy uniform. He said when his unit was...

Most of us seem to have a love/hate relationship with work. We bemoan Mondays because we have to go to work, and we love Fridays because we get off of work. Yet, if we didn’t have a job, we’d be poor as dirt and depressed. It would be a major crisis for all of us. I...

Every Flower Is Not Worthy of a Bouquet When I was a boy, on a hot summer day, I noticed some beautiful orange flowers growing along a fence near my home. I picked a lovely bouquet of them and presented them to my mother. While she was appreciative of the gesture, I...