Grandma's Gleanings
Words and Thoughts from Grandma
After being involved in children’s ministries for years, I have grown accustomed to embarking on a bizarre quest in search of some unique prop or a captivating teaching aid to drive home a lesson to my students. This week’s search was no less interesting. In preparation for an upcoming Christmas play, I found myself on …
“His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree.” Rather common in the Holy Land, the olive tree is a multi-branched evergreen with a smooth, ash-colored bark and green, leathery leaves. The olive tree is an extremely slow-growing plant, requiring many years of patient labor to reach its fullest fruitfulness. Mature …
We have been marooned in our house for two weeks now, fourteen long days of confinement within the walls of our home. Life has changed with the arrival of the coronavirus; we are experiencing a crisis, a time of national darkness and pain. But through the experience, we have learned to appreciate those insignificant …
In a hospital in Seto City, 20 kilometers northeast of Nagoya, Japan, on an ordinary day in July, a baby girl was born…and God saw. A world away, in a rural Pennsylvania home, a family was yearning for the seemingly impossible, a new life to be added to their growing brood…and God saw. And …
My junior church children would all giggle whenever I would share this silly story with them. The tale centered around a little boy named Fred. Now Fred had a problem, he was very handsome, talented, and personable…and he knew it. All the girls would sigh whenever Fred would enter a room, and he certainly …
You will NOT find it listed among the spiritual gifts bestowed upon the believers, “those gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us,” nor is it listed among the “fruit of the Spirit.” Let’s see, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering…” and criticism? But criticizing the actions and motives of others continues to …
Surrounding our small country cottage is a canopy of lovely, mature maple trees, providing us shade from the heat of summer and a beautiful tapestry of color in the fall. But there is that moment every year when I sincerely ponder having those trees felled to the ground. God provides the maple tree seed …
As I former high school music director, I had the privilege of selecting the performing music for our choirs and hand bell ensembles on a yearly basis. In the course of my final year of teaching, I was blessed with an extremely talented group of young musicians, students with many years of bell experience under …
Some days I find myself at a loss for words, literally. As a lingering side-effect of my struggle with Lyme disease a few years ago, I sometimes lose words. They are generally common, uncomplicated words, but suddenly, without warning, they are gone, wiped from my memory banks like an eraser sweeping across a chalkboard. …
He was a statesman who led our young nation through the greatest moral, constitutional, and political crises of our history, and although his life was filled with political and personal struggles, he still managed to embody a spirit of wisdom, calm, and inspiration. Abraham Lincoln possessed the uncanny ability to think before he responded, …
As I’ve mentioned a number of times, I’m an admitted plant-o-holic. Our property was fairly barren when we moved in decades ago, but no longer, for I have succeeded in cluttering the entire yard with shrubs, plants, bushes, flowers, tress, and of course, stray cats. But there is a downside to yard cluttering. What …
In plant terminology, thorns, spines, and prickles are defined as hard, rigid extensions of leaves, roots, stems, or buds with sharp, stiff ends. In simple laymen terms, they are the stupid, pointy thingies that make our fingers bleed. These thorns have one predominant function, they serve as a physical defense for the plant, deterring animals …
It is a tried-and-true yard classic, well-known for its hardiness, versatility, and beauty, and although most varieties lack a showy flower, the colorful, vibrant foliage more than compensates for that. Barberries are stunning in color, low in maintenance, and uniform in their growth pattern, but this lovely traditional plant has one glaring drawback. A barberry …
Oh, the joy of cutting into a fresh, crisp watermelon! This will certainly be the perfect dessert for the Sunday afternoon dinner that will follow a morning of worship at our local church. No one was looking, so I did sneak a few bites while slicing up our tantalizing dessert. After all, someone has …
I will admit it-I am a committed insomniac. This has been my struggle, my “thorn in the flesh,” for what seems like a very long time. My older sister tells me that even as an infant, I would hang over the edge of my crib for most of the night, staring her down, disturbing her rest. I’ve tried …