This past weekend, I was remembering many Easters in my life. Maybe you were remembering some significant Easters of your own. I wrote about one of mine in Sacred Sense from Taking a Second Look. I have included this excerpt from the book, but be sure to keep reading when you finish. There are some questions you may need to ponder.

EASTER DURING A PANDEMIC

Well, it’s Easter 2020 in the middle of a pandemic, and it’s an Easter unlike any other that I’ve experienced. The church doors are closed. We cannot be with our family. But somehow Easter is more meaningful than it’s ever been. Easter secures my future, and I’m blessed enough to have beautiful memories of Easters gone by.

When I remember the Easters of my childhood, they mostly involved the new spring mother-daughter dresses Mama made, new hats that had to have small flowers to frame my face and ribbons that trailed in the wind behind me, a new pair of white patent leather shoes from Kramer’s Department Store on Broad Street, pink cotton socks with lace trim, my grandmother’s coconut bunny cake, and the smell of vinegar from coloring the Easter eggs. These are all fond memories, and I wouldn’t trade them, but then there was this Easter . . . the Easter from behind bars.

As a seminary student in Fort Worth, TX, I was contracted by the government to teach English as a Second Language to international inmates. Only two weeks had gone by before the secret was out—a seminary music student was working in the Education Unit. The Protestant chaplain asked to meet with me, and we became friends quickly. She explained the need, and I agreed to plan and lead the music for the Sunday morning Protestant worship services as a volunteer. A few months passed, and I had assembled a choir and other musicians eager to make music, even if it was in the chapel service. Chapel services were not the place most of these fellows had usually made music. Oh, the stories I could tell about choir rehearsals.

In the early spring, I had this idea which I took to the chaplain, affectionately called Sister Teresa by now. She liked and approved it—an Easter Sunrise service in the middle of the compound. Fort Worth, TX is flat, but the prison compound was on a high, bald hill, just perfect for such a service. Housing units, administration buildings, the mess hall, and other buildings outlined the perimeter of the property, and they all faced and opened into this large grassy area where the service could be held.

Easter morning came. The guards were in their places to escort the inmates from their units to the yard. The choir was well rehearsed. The hymn sheets had been printed. The portable pump organ, which I had to pump with my knee, had been carefully positioned. I had even brought clothes pins to keep my music from blowing into the next county. Guards opened the doors of the units housing the prisoners at precisely 6:25 a.m., allowing the inmates to attend the service. After two minutes, the doors were closed, closed like only prison doors can be closed. Those inmates who were at the door at the appointed time were allowed to follow the guards and gather in the prison yard.

It was a cold, windy morning on that hill. We started with scripture and sang a couple of hymns before it happened—one of those rare moments when your eyes take a picture with every minor detail forever seared into your brain. I remember it as if I were there today—the feel of the cold wind on my face, the smell of bacon coming from the mess hall, the inmates all dressed alike and standing in a circle around the choir and worship leaders. Because of the logistics and the lay of the land, we were like human megaphones intoning the hymns and allowing the melodies and harmonies to soar. The sound was almost mystical.

The soloist stepped from his position in the choir. He was a giant of a man, but with a gentle spirit and one of the richest, untrained, buttery, natural bass voices I had ever heard. I played the introduction, and he joined me in measure five with his first phrase—”Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” I accompanied him for a few more phrases and then stopped. He didn’t need me, and I was so moved I could no longer play. He stood there with his eyes closed and sang every stanza as though he truly was there when His Lord was crucified, and there when they nailed Him to the tree, and when they laid Him in the tomb, and then finally when He rose up from the grave. By then, we all joined him in shouting glory!

I remember the music and the emotion of it. But that was only the backdrop for what I remember most. As that rich bass voice swirled in the breezes above me, I looked around at the faces, not the faces of those standing in the circle for the service, but the faces of those inmates peering through the windows in the housing units. The windows were double-paned with bars in between, but I could see the hands pressed against the glass and their faces, trying to get a glimpse and to hear what was going on outside because they were not a part of it. Not a part of it. I saw their remorse for having missed that two-minute window when the door was open. I saw their deep sadness and their longing. I saw their longing for freedom, the kind the Resurrection brings.

That scene did two things for me. First, it gave me a whole new sense of what Easter really means. Resurrection means freedom—freedom from death and freedom to be all God created me to be. And secondly, it gave me a sense of urgency about doors closing for people who do not yet know about that freedom.

The world just seems quieter now even amid the chaos of the coronavirus. These days, people have time to think about freedom, the real and forever kind. I invite you to sit and ponder just for a few minutes. Think about the freedom that comes with the empty tomb—freedom from fear, from death, from worry, from anxiety about your own future. Freedom to live with hope, to pray, to know that you’ll see your loved ones again, to live joyfully as the beloved of God, and freedom to open doors so that others may know this kind of freedom. And think about what you’re doing with your freedom. It wasn’t free, you know.

So, here are the questions? What path are you on? And what are you and Jesus doing on Monday?

I hope that last week was a meaningful one for you as you followed Jesus through Jerusalem to Golgotha and then rising and walking away from the Empty Tomb. Truly the greatest story ever. Maybe you experienced deep emotion as you imagined what His followers experienced each step of the way. Perhaps you “pondered anew what the Almighty can do” as the hymn says.

Jesus was alive and walked with His followers for a time after His resurrection. I can only imagine how they soaked up every minute and every word that came from His lips. He had already given them the Greatest Commandments to love God with their whole beings and to love each other. And now before Jesus returned to heaven, He gives them the Great Commission to go and take His light into the dark places, spreading the good news of the Gospel. And so they went, that little rag-tag group of committed men and women whose message changed the world. And now two thousand years later, our marching orders are still the same.

I believe most of life is lived on “Saturday.” We don’t live continually in Friday’s crucifixion hours, and neither do we dwell daily in the mountaintop experience of Sunday’s Resurrection Morning. We are valley people, Saturday people, and we live mostly in the “in-between” times. Some of those times are wonderful, and other times are difficult. But we are to live with faith and with God’s purpose every day.

Sunday morning’s message said Friday’s events and Saturday’s waiting were not the end of the story. And two thousand years later, it’s still not the end of the story. Remember, when Jesus breathed His last breath, the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom, giving us access to our most Holy God and His Spirit. God changed history and the human condition—my condition—forever. He’s still writing His story of freedom in our lives.

But now it’s Monday, and it’s real time. We’re Easter people, and that means Jesus’s Spirit dwells in us and our lives are supposed to be different. We are to make a difference by living out His purpose in us. What difference will you allow Him to make in you? What path will you take today? And, how will you let Him continue the writing of your story in real time?

Read: Matthew 28:1-10, Mark 16:1-12, Luke 24, John 20:1-21

The women who had stayed at the tomb until sundown on Friday returned early on Sunday morning after the Sabbath. They came with spices to finish their burial preparation of Jesus’s body but were met with yet something else they did not expect, or rather Someone they did not expect to see. Jesus. He was alive! What joy! What restoration of their hope. Dark Friday and dismal Saturday were over. Jesus was alive and the world was bright in the cascading light of Resurrection Morning.

I can imagine these women could hardly contain themselves and the news they were given. Jesus was alive and with them again. They were probably so happy to see Him that they had little time to ponder what His presence actually meant. That would come later, just like it does for us. And as they realized that Jesus was alive, I can imagine that Elizabeth’s prayer was different on Sunday.

Lord, they’re all downstairs with Jesus. He lives. Jesus lives. I can hardly believe it. Our joy and our hope have returned, and if I were not an old woman, I’d be downstairs with them clapping my hands and dancing. But I have a need to say something to You, Lord. My sorrowful heart of yesterday has become a grateful heart. How could I have doubted You? Jesus is alive, and He has buried death forever. Oh, God, the God of my fathers, and the father of our Lord Jesus, I praise You. You have delivered us again. Jesus is with us. He will tell us what to do. And Lord, because of Him and because He is alive, I know I will see my beloved Zechariah and I will hold my son, my son John, again. They wait for me in the home You made for all of us. Thank you, my God. Amen.

In my quietness, I could hear the sounds of joy below as I stood in the same corner where I sat and prayed with such a heavy heart yesterday. But today, the sky is so blue. I feel the warmth of the sun and a gentle breeze. It feels like hope.

Jesus lives. Resurrected. Jesus changed everything forever. That doesn’t just feel like hope, it IS hope.

So, celebrate! Be joyful and grateful! He is alive! And because He lives, we live today and forever! Hallelujah!

Read: Matthew 27:57–66, Luke 23:50-56, John 19:38-42

There isn’t much written about the day after Jesus was crucified. We know Joseph of Arimathea was allowed to take Jesus’s body, and he buried Jesus in a tomb and sealed it with a rock late on Friday. Some of the women who were followers of Jesus were there and observed but went home at sundown, following the rules for the Sabbath. Many have speculated where Jesus was and what He was doing on Saturday, but the one thing we know is that He was quiet.

Jesus had told His disciples that He would die in Jerusalem and that He would rise on the third day and meet them in Galilee. But on Saturday, they found themselves waiting and grieving. They had walked with Jesus, listened to His words, and observed His ways, but now He was gone, just gone. They felt abandoned with unfulfilled hope, unsure of Jesus’s return. I can imagine their fear, their grief, their confusion, and even their anticipation as they waited.

Jesus could have become immediately alive again after drawing His last breath, but He didn’t. The stone was still and in place for a whole day. Holy Saturday, as it is known, was the day of waiting. So, we should look at Saturday as having meaningful significance and more than just the day between the crucifixion and the Resurrection.

We’ve all had days of waiting, when God might have seemed absent to us—like the hours in a surgical waiting room, or waiting for a prayer to be answered, or anticipating the birth of a baby, or waiting for our grief to subside. There is a certain quietness in the Holy Saturdays of our lives when all we have are our faith and the promises we find in God’s Word. Just as the disciples waited, we wait to see what God will do. What do you do during the waiting?

Think of how Jesus’s followers huddled together in their grief, afraid perhaps for even their lives. Imagine what they might have been doing. We know that some of the women prepared oils and spices so they could return to the tomb when the Sabbath was over. Probably some of them were so overcome, they sat in silence. Others might have attempted to give comfort or share stories of remembrance. Imagine how they tried to erase the images of Friday’s crucifixion from their minds. Imagine their conversations as they waited.

As one who ponders and meditates, I have imagined what Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, might have been thinking during those hours following Jesus’s death. Listen to her thoughts from my imagination.

The night was long, so very long. Nights always seem long after such a dark day. We came back to the room when it was over, when there was nothing left for us to do. We didn’t need to be on the streets, but we needed to be with each other – maybe to share our grief and hopelessness or maybe because we were afraid. The Romans had tasted blood. Who of us might be next?

I had no words, so I sat away from the others in silence while they wept and clung to each other. I looked at Mary and remembered losing John. I knew what she was feeling. It was all too familiar to me. There is a cost to being the mother of God’s chosen ones. And I looked around at the others. I knew their families and their stories. They left their homes and their work to follow Jesus, but He’s gone. What will happen to them now? They’ve been changed. They can’t just go home again to fish. I’m old, and it doesn’t matter so much about me. But we’re all like lost sheep without our shepherd. Jesus tried to tell us, but we didn’t understand.

John offered me a small bed near the window for the night. I barely slept. I could see a faint light in the sky, so I rose early because that’s what old women do. There was an unusual chill in the air this morning, but if I start the fire, I’ll wake them. They should sleep. Sleep is a rest from their pain. I took the blanket from my bed and climbed the clay steps to the rooftop. I needed to see the morning sky. Besides that’s my time to pray. I walked across the roof and gazed out across the city, the city Jesus wept over, the city that cheered His death, the city that went dark and shook when He died. I sat down on the sandy floor in the corner out of the wind and wrapped the blanket around me.

I looked into the morning sky and I prayed.

Dear Lord, my heart is heavy, so very heavy. I don’t know what to do except to talk to you just like I did after my beloved son was taken from me. So much I don’t understand, Lord. You sent your angel to speak to Zechariah when I was an aging, barren woman. My barrenness disgraced me, and yet You gave me promise - a son and You said he’d be great in Your eyes, and he’d be different and filled with your spirit, and that he was the chosen one to prepare for the Messiah. And so he was. And my John did everything you said, Lord.

I’m so grateful my John got to meet Jesus. He preached and baptized until he couldn’t because they killed him, too. I didn’t think I could bear it. But I knew, Lord. I knew that Mary had birthed the Messiah, and Jesus gave me hope.

Oh, but God, no mother should have to bear what Mary witnessed yesterday. It was too brutal. There could no deeper sorrow. And the horror? She can’t unsee it, Lord. It was too much, too much for all of us.

Jesus was your son, God. Did you watch and weep? Did you turn your face away in sadness? You could have stopped them. But you didn’t. You didn’t.

And Judas, how could he? How could he have led those Roman soldiers straight to Jesus? How could he have been with Jesus and have seen and heard Him, and then give Him up like that? And he did it to the rest of us, too, betraying Jesus like that.

Oh, Father God, I have so many questions. I know You must have a plan. You’ve always had a plan. You’ve always delivered us. My heart is so sorrowful, but somewhere deep inside, I know this world has no sorrow that You cannot heal. Amen.

Silent tears trickled down my hollow cheeks where tears have flowed before. I sat alone for a while humming the songs we would have sung if we’d been allowed to have His body and give Him a proper burial. The morning sun warmed my face but could not dry my tears.

I leave this with you now. We know the end of the story, and Holy Saturday wasn’t it. For we know that Sunday’s coming.

The first portrait my husband painted when He was only thirteen. It still hangs in our home as a reminder, as a place to humble ourselves and be grateful.

We’ve all read this story so many times. Perhaps many of you have seen movies depicting the scenes on this day – the brutality, the beatings, the betrayal.

For six unimaginable hours, the Shepherd becomes the Lamb. Those at the foot of His cross had mixed reactions. Some jeered, others sneered, and those who loved Him could do nothing to stop it. They saw the man they thought would be their Messiah die a cruel death. They didn’t understand that Sunday was coming.

Return to the foot of the cross. See yourself there. Maybe you’re standing, gazing at Him with your arms reaching to heaven in despair. Maybe you’re crumpled on your knees on the ground, weeping over His suffering and your own pain and grief. But I hope somewhere in that experience, you can look into Jesus’s face and say, “Thank You, thank You.”

All four of the Gospel writers report about the events of Thursday. It was an evening of high drama—life-changing conversations, a foot-washing, disappointments, fervent praying, a betrayal, and a denial.

Read these passages as if you were in the Upper Room and in the Garden of Gethsemane with His disciples. Ponder these questions to help you meditate on these passages.

What would have been your response if you were the one Jesus chose to host the Last Supper?

It was just the night before that Jesus’s head had been anointed with costly aromatic oils, and now He knelt to wash His disciples’ feet. How would you have reacted if Jesus insisted on washing your feet?

What would you have thought when Jesus said that after His death and resurrection He would meet them in Galilee?

If you had been there at the table when He told them that one of them would betray Him, what would have been your response?

Would you have followed Him to the Mount of Olives? He went to pray and to wait, for He knew what was coming. Imagine what you would have felt when He was led away from the garden by the soldiers.

Picture yourself as Peter in the courtyard, wanting to be near Jesus and yet so afraid.

Jesus has had three full days of being in the public eye – His entrance into Jerusalem on Sunday, His confrontations with religious leaders on Monday, and His teaching in the Temple on Tuesday. On Wednesday, He withdraws and is still and quiet. He continues trying to prepare His disciples for what is coming.

Sit there at the table in Simon the Leper’s house. Watch as Mary enters with her expensive bottle of perfume and anoints Jesus’s head. Listen to His response. Which character in this story would you have been?

Then imagine the thoughts in Judas’s mind as he plotted to betray Jesus. With all that he had seen and heard, and yet he could turn his back on Jesus and the other disciples for selfish gain.

Jesus literally had turned the tables, turned the tables over in the Temple on Monday with some strong reprimands. And now on Tuesday comes the direct confrontation with the high priests, the religious scholars, and the leaders. They pose questions. I’m not certain if they were sincerely looking for answers or for a way to trip Jesus up, but Jesus did something we were all taught not to do—He answered the question with a question of His own. His response was not something these religious leaders wanted to hear.

Jesus spends Tuesday in the Temple teaching, telling them parables, reminding the listeners of the Scriptures, answering questions, and telling them about the future events. Jesus knows this may well be His last opportunity to speak with them in the Temple, for He understands the fulfilling of His purpose is coming soon. Mark tells us how Jesus summed it all up in two great commandments. (Mark 12:29-31).

Can you even imagine being there, sitting at Jesus’s feet, hearing the Truth coming from His own voice? Can you imagine the expressions on His face as He told the parables? What questions might have you asked Jesus had you been there? How would you have responded to His answers?

Jesus had made His entry into Jerusalem on Sunday, and things were astir. People were wondering about this Jesus. They were asking questions. There was something different in the air. Late on Sunday, He had returned to Bethany with His disciples.

But on Monday morning, Jesus woke them and said, “We’re going back to Jerusalem.” That was risky business. The disciples questioned Him, but Jesus was fully aware of His purpose and what He must do.

While many were hungry for Jesus’s words, the established religious leaders were growing more fearful of Jesus and His followers, and they had begun to plot to get rid of Him.

Read the Gospel accounts to see how Jesus established His authority, especially in the Temple. Imagine being there in Jerusalem in the Temple. You had shouted your “Hosannas” on Sunday, but what would you be doing on Monday? Would you be excited? Would you be afraid or disappointed? What might your questions have been?

For several days, Jesus had been in Bethany. Bethany, meaning “house of dates,” was a small village on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives and only a couple of miles from Jerusalem. It was known as a village that welcomed travelers and provided rest and respite on their journeys.

It was apparent that Jesus felt at home there, especially in the home of His friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead.

During these days before Palm Sunday, Jesus was preparing those He loved for what He knew was to come. On Sunday, Jesus journeyed with His disciples the two miles to Jerusalem. As He neared city, He looked out over it and wept. Perhaps He wasn’t just weeping over Jerusalem. Wouldn’t it be like Jesus to weep over all those who refused to recognize Him for who He truly was? He had come to change the world, to change their lives, to give them hope, and to offer them abundant living and life forever.

Before Jesus entered Jerusalem, He instructed two of His disciples to go to a certain place and get a donkey. The crowds had gathered for a royal welcome, a rolling out of the proverbial red carpet. Many of these who gathered had been with Jesus before. They had heard Him teach and had seen the miracles He performed.

The onlookers lined the road, waving their palm branches which were symbols of victory, virtue, triumph, and eternal peace. They were looking for Jesus to be their new king and to save them from Roman rule, but King Jesus entered the city riding the lowly animal, signifying He was a different kind of king. Still the people shouted their hosannas, which means please save us. (See Psalm 118:25-26.) They spread their coats and shawls on the path in front of Him as they would have done for a leader returning home from a military conquest.

Undeterred by their praises, Jesus went to the temple. Let this scene from the Gospels become real to you as Jesus reminded the religious leaders that His house was to be a house of prayer. Ponder that. Late in the day, Jesus and His disciples returned to Bethany for the night.

There have been many events during my lifetime that I can recall exactly where I was and what I was doing when I learned of them, but two stand out. You, too, may share these experiences. I remember vividly crawling into the front seat of our two-toned, green, 1959 Ford Galaxie when Mama picked me up from Southside Elementary School on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. Mama was crying, crying hard, when she told me that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. I cried hard, too. Maybe it was because I didn’t like seeing Mama crying, or maybe it was because of my own growing understanding of what had happened to our president.

And the second event was on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers in New York fell because of the hate-filled acts of misguided terrorists. Bill and I had just returned from our morning walk. Our plan was to take a quick shower and start packing for our upcoming trip to Europe. We turned on the television in the bathroom to get the news while we readied ourselves for the day. The second tower had just been hit. We were stunned. We sat speechless and unable to move ourselves from the television all day long as the stories unfolded. Both these events changed the course of American history.

But there was another event that changed my personal history, and I recall that moment with all its details too. That was the moment when I, as a seven-year-old girl, realized that God loved me enough to die for me and that He had hopes for how I would choose to live my life. I was not in church at this moment. It was not a bedtime prayer with my parents. I was alone and talking to God before I went to sleep. God had used my parents, my pastor, my Sunday School teacher, and others to lead me to this moment of reality. That night, I asked God to forgive me for disappointing Him, and I gave my heart, all I understood of it at the time, to my Lord Jesus. I informed my parents the next morning and my church family the following Sunday, and I could hardly wait to be baptized. It was a childlike, limited understanding I had, but I knew without doubt that I needed Jesus, and I believed He was loving enough to do for me what I could not do for myself. I am grateful for God’s s patience and grace as my faith and my understanding have grown through the years. That’s just how God is.

As Christians, we are blessed to have an evidence-based faith—real stories about real people in real places and many witnesses to so many important events. I’ve had the great privilege to visit the land where our Lord lived and ministered while on this earth. I’ve walked the Shepherds Fields and the streets of Jerusalem and the Garden of Gethsemane and the Via Dolorosa. And as the old song reminds us, “and (I) felt His presence there.” Walking where He walked gave life to the scripture, made it three dimensional for me, and enhanced my imagination.

At the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem

As a writer, I have a fertile imagination – an imagination that caused Mama great consternation when I was a child, but that same imagination has served me well as an author. I envision scenes in immense detail and in technicolor. When I am writing, I have the complete description of every character—hair color, eye color, size, age, skin tone and the sound of the voice. I draw floor plans and place furniture and live in each room while I am writing. I design gardens and sketch diagrams of small towns. Imagination. I bring that same imagination when I read the Bible, especially when I read the Bible.

I am grateful you are joining me this Holy Week, day by day, walking where Jesus walked as He chose the way of the cross. He could have chosen another way, but He chose His Father’s plan and purpose.

I invite you to read the scriptures each morning. I hope you will use your imagination to envision every scene and allow these events to become very real to you. Read them from each Gospel and experience each writer’s personality and perspective. If these passages are already familiar to you, maybe you could read them from a different translation. My favorite is The Message.

Meditate on the verses, imagine, and try to picture what Jesus was doing and what He might have been thinking and feeling every step of the way. And imagine the other persons in these stories, especially His disciples. Identify with them. Allow yourself to feel their confusion, disillusionment, disappointment, and fear. Those same emotions run rampant in the world today. Emotionally, we may be resonating more with Jesus’s disciples this week than we ever have.

Let us begin our journey with Jesus this week. Find a comfortable place to sit in solitude and read each Gospel as though you are reading it for the first time. Close your eyes, meditate, and imagine the scenes and emotions. Listen for God’s Spirit as you walk with Jesus this Holy Week.

Walking where Jesus walked . . . .

The Joy Jar is empty this morning, and the messages that previously filled it are scattered as we read them one by one. Earlier, I wrote about our Joy Jar and how every Sunday morning as we give only thanks (no requests unless there’s a REAL need) to our Father, we write notes that help us reflect on the blessings of the past week and stuff the notes into the Joy Jar.

Reading through these fifty-two weeks of blessings and gratitude this morning, I was amazed at what made it into the jar: gratitude for answered prayer, for a phone call from a friend, for a good lab report, for a delicious meal, for a quiet walk, for resources to give, for ordinary days, for the release of a new book, for a sense of His presence, for seeing God’s work in the life of a friend, and so many more blessings great and small.

But really! Is any blessing small? A blessing may seem small until we remember that it comes from God, who was the Beginning and who created out of nothing all there is that we can see and even the things we cannot see. From galaxies to microscopic strands of DNA. From incredulous mountain peaks to the expanse of a desert. From the heavens to humans, He created it all. Then He made you and knows the number of hairs on your head, and there’s no place you can be that He is not there. Our Big God looks for ways to bless us every day. We have only to look for the blessings to express our thanks and to fill our Joy Jar. Nothing small about that.

Unfortunately, we’re not born with the attitude of gratitude. As demanding infants, we cry and whimper until our physical needs are met, and then when we’re satisfied, we simply go to sleep. Unfortunately, some of us carry that practice into adulthood, never acknowledging what God does for us. It truly makes me sorrowful to think of the times I did not acknowledge God’s goodness to me.

A young mother who had read my earlier post really blessed me recently when she sent photos of her two young daughters painting their Joy Jars because she intends to use this practice going into 2026. With a mother who is teaching them that the secret to joy in life is in expressing gratitude, I can imagine how those girls will grow into gracious, grateful women.

Charles Spurgeon, the mid 19^th century pastor and author, said, “Too many people write their blessings in the sand but engrave their sorrows in marble.”

Don’t let your heart become the marble where your sorrows or your troubles are deeply etched. Yes, we must deal with sorrows, but let us focus on our blessings. I invite you to pick up a pen and a piece of paper or a journal and write down your blessings. Soon, your Joy Jar will be full, and better than that, your heart will be gladdened. Seeing and acknowledging God’s daily blessings will make you ever mindful of God’s presence and His activity in your life.

For you in 2026, I pray for an abundance of blessings, an abundance of joy-filled moments, an abundance of hope, and an abundance of Peace. May your Joy Jar always be full.

www.phyllisclarknichols.com

Would you like a little more joy in your life? I found the secret magic words that will beckon joy and bring it to you: Thank You. But you must say the words over and over. Look that person in the eye like you mean it, and say “Thank you” to your mom, to your spouse, to your children, to the neighbor, to the postman, to the nurse, to the store clerk, and don’t neglect to say “Thank You” to the One who made you. And not just because it’s Thanksgiving.

I want to express my gratitude to you for taking three minutes to read this and to thank my loyal readers who have purchased and read my books, who have shared them with others, who have recommended them to their book clubs, who have taken the time to drop a review online, and who have taken time to write me. A reader let me know a couple of weeks ago that she had been to her local public library to make certain all my books were on the library shelves. I am so grateful to all of you. Without you, I have no reason to write.

As a reader, you know that I value family and traditions. We have a tradition at the Nichols’ Nest, and it involves the Joy Jar. It’s just a glass jar I purchased at Hobby Lobby made more personal by my husband’s paint brush. The Joy Jar sits on the kitchen counter where I see it countless times a day. And on Sundays, our day when we ask for nothing and only give thanks during our prayer time, we reflect on the past days and write down on a slip of paper that thing for which we were most grateful that week.

And come December 31, we will sit together, dump all those dated slips of paper on to the table, and we’ll read each one. I can tell you over the years as I have practiced being grateful, I have become a more joyful person. It’s really no secret at all that gratitude is the key to a joyful life.

Now I want to share with you one of the devotions from my book SACRED SENSE From a Second Look. I hope it will resonate with you.

HEAVEN: A NEVER-ENDING NOVEMBER

We’ve barely heard the last Fourth of July firecracker before the stores start putting out plastic pumpkins and Halloween costumes and lining the aisles with Christmas tinsel and holly garlands. I know that seasons come and go and that this is retail in America, but it pushes my buttons. I have to fight the urge to stand at the Customer Service desk, and in a paint-peeling scream yell, “What in the name of these holidays happened to November?”

November’s my very favorite month of the year. How could anyone just skip November? Brisk mornings, sun-warmed afternoons, autumnal colors? I crave apples dipped in warm caramel and the smell of pumpkin spice. I steep my afternoon cup of tea with one drop each of cinnamon, cloves, and orange essential oils. How can you just rush past the Halloween goblins and sprint to the Bethlehem stable? Now I confess that I might watch a couple of Christmas movies in October, real late October, but the Thanksgiving-foods-with-a-new-twist cooking shows are my November staple for television watching.

I print out at least a dozen new recipes—stuffings, bread pudding, dressing, honey-orange-glazed carrots, and a savory squash medley. But truth be known, none of those will ever find their way to our Thanksgiving table. I think about it, even make out a shopping list, but they just won’t work. My turkey carcass will never know what it’s like to be stuffed with bread and sausage because we’ll still be eating that buttery cornbread dressing, crunchy with celery and seasoned with green onion. The glazed carrots will never replace my roasted sweet potato and apples with maple syrup and sprinkled with roasted pecans. And kale? I may put you in a bean soup in January, or in a spring salad, or roast you into chips in the summer, but you will not find yourself unseating the bacon-seasoned collard greens on my Thanksgiving table. I apologize to my friend who gave me her recipe, but her spice cake with lemon whipped cream, as good as it might be with tea in December, will not be served on Thanksgiving. There’d be an uprising if the praline pecan pumpkin pie didn’t show up. These foods are our comforting, predictable, and oh-so delicious family traditions. Memories and traditions are so important to families, and November brings some of the best.

The calendar pages seem to be turning more quickly as of late, but I intend to savor every moment and every morsel of November, for I know January’s coming. Those warm autumnal colors will be past, and the winter will bring its own color palette. The valley floor will be carpeted with frost, the distant hills will be gray-washed, and I’ll be sitting in my cuddle chair, wrapped in my favorite throw with my laptop computer perched on my knees still editing Chapter Nineteen. I’ll be sipping spiced tea and maybe nibbling on what’s left of my homemade fruitcake. And every once in a while, I’ll look up and glance out the window to see those neutral tones of winter, but they will not make me pine for May. I’ll be remembering November.

Such is life. Seasons come and go, but God gives us the gift of memory and the gift of His presence with us in every season. He is there when the sun is shining and all is well. He is there during the storms and the cold of winter when life is hard. He gives us His presence and memories of better times to remind us in the dead of winter that November’s sweetness will return.

How can we not be thankful to the One who gives us November and the ability to remember those warm feelings and images of happy times? And we really don’t need a designated holiday in November to be grateful. It’s our practice of gratitude that will make us joyful on a cold day in January.

Every day, no matter the season, is filled with things for which to be thankful. After all, God, our Father, is the One who thought of us before we existed, who gave us life, gives us purpose, and the One who says, “I love you so much that I want you to live forever with me, and here’s what I’ll do to show you!” I know that heaven will be more and better than we can even imagine, but I’m hoping, hoping, hoping that it will be like a never-ending November.

Happy Thanksgiving and may your Joy Jar be overflowing . . .

Phyllis

Link to SACRED SENSE: From a Second Look_

In his retirement, Bill’s dad spent his time in his manicured vegetable garden that looked like a page from a Southern Living magazine. Measured straight rows of beans, peas, squash, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes and NO weeds ever. He gave the same meticulous care to the vineyard and orchard of fruit trees and his bees. When the harvest time was over, he busied himself getting ready for the next planting.

On one of our visits home when Dad Nichols proudly offered us a taste of honey from his hives, I confess I was reluctant. As a young girl, I did not like the pungent aftertaste of the honey I had eaten. I preferred molasses or cane syrup or Mama’s fig preserves. Bitter honey was just not appropriate for Mama’s float-off-your-plate biscuits made in her butter-yellow crock.

But tasting Dad Nichols’ honey was a different experience. When I told him that his golden treasure just might make a honey-lover of me, he explained that the honey I had eaten as a child was probably made from bees that gathered nectar from clover or from the blossoms of the citrus groves in Central Florida. But his bees feasted from his garden, his orchard, and his flowers, making a floral honey that left a lingering sweetness of caramel in my mouth. Bill’s parents kept us in honey until his dad’s home-going to heaven.

I suppose I am a sentimental soul because for forty-two years, I have kept the last jar of honey dated June 6, 1983, in the back of the pantry unbeknownst to anyone except me. Knowing that the Mason jar of goodness was on the shelf brought me a bit of comfort for I knew that once it was gone, there would be no more honey like that ever. But this week, I brought it out, showed it to Bill, and we decided to open it. Seeing Dad Nichols’ handwriting and tasting that honey again? Well, it was almost a spiritual experience. I thought of Bill’s dad and how he took such pride in his garden and his bees and how his mother preserved, canned, and froze the produce from the garden. They enjoyed supplying family and friends with the fruits of their labors.

I know that before long the jar will be empty, and I imagine that the labels will find their way to my treasure box. But I’ll still treasure the yellow bowl Mama used only for biscuit making for over sixty years, and I will continue to make sourdough biscuits in it, biscuits worthy of Dad Nichols’ honey. That dated jar of honey and that yellow crock with a hairline crack have given me something to hold onto until it’s time to let go.

Savor the sweetness of life. Hold tight to such wonderful memories. Treasure the ties that bind the past and the present, and don’t wait forty-two years.

Tragedies usually come with a tsunami of mostly unanswerable questions as we try to make sense of them. With the death of Charlie Kirk, there are some things on which we can all agree. A life was taken too soon, and many other lives were shattered. Two fathers and two mothers lost their sons: one to an assassin, and one as the assassin. Two children lost a father. Siblings lost a brother. And a wife lost her husband and soulmate. No compassionate person can deny the pain and brokenness in these lives.

In the past few days, I have watched a young widow, Erika Kirk, mourn the loss of her husband Charlie. With a shattered heart, she spoke with grace of her love for her husband, her forgiveness of the assassin, and her trust in God. Her heart is shattered, but her faith is not, for she trusts God to pick up the broken pieces.

I was remembering a poignant scene from RETURN OF THE SONG. Early in the book, Caroline, the major character who is a young single woman, was about to serve tea to Gretchen, her new friend who is older. Choosing her favorite china teapot from her cupboard, Caroline explained to Gretchen that it had been her grandmother’s pansy teapot for serving tea to her friends. The heirloom slipped from Caroline’s hands and shattered as it hit the floor. Gretchen helped her sweep up the shards of porcelain and asked if she could have them. Caroline was puzzled but put the broken pieces into a box for Gretchen to take home.

The scene below takes place weeks later when Gretchen and Bella, her granddaughter who is a musical savant, came to visit Caroline. Perhaps we can take some comfort in Gretchen’s wisdom.

Monday morning’s first call came from Gretchen. Eager to hear all about the trip, she and Bella were at the back door within minutes of hanging up the phone. Caroline greeted them, and all three headed for the kitchen to start the teakettle. She was surprised Bella did not make a beeline for the piano.

Bella carried a hatbox. Gretchen took it from her and gently placed it on the breakfast table. The box was covered in fabric pansies, its seams and edges outlined and decorated in a narrow, deep-purple ribbon topped with a gold braid.

“Oh, this box is beautiful. Gretchen, where did you find something like this?”

“Find it? I did not find it. Do you remember the day you dropped your favorite teapot with the pansies on it?”

“Oh, yes, I remember.”

“And you told me that pansies were the symbol of friendship. I found this beautiful fabric and covered the box for you. Please open it.”

Caroline nodded and picked up the box. “It’s heavy. What’s inside?”

“I made the box, but Bella made what is inside. Open with care.”

Caroline untied the ribbon and lifted the lid. She carefully removed the crinkled-up brown grocery bags protecting the contents. Something solid sat in the center of the box. She lifted it and began unwrapping it. The last layer of brown paper revealed a remarkable work of art.

The sculptured piece, ten to twelve inches high, was a mold of a delicate hand holding a heart. With a more careful look, Caroline recognized the shards of her broken teapot. She was stunned. Her questioning eyes forced Gretchen to speak.

“Bella loves puzzles, and to her, your broken teapot was like a puzzle she could put together. She made the mold of her hand from papier-mâché. I mixed the plaster for her, and she shaped the piece bit by bit, adding the broken pieces of china before the plaster dried.”

“Oh, my, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Gretchen took the piece from Caroline’s hands and positioned it on the counter with the hand facing upward, showing the heart gently cradled in the palm. “This is how it should be displayed. Notice right here at the top and center of the heart, Bella put an opening. I didn’t understand why, but there is no coaxing her when she is creating. A couple of days after the piece dried, I found flowers in the opening. She made the heart to hold your blossoms.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had a gift like this before. Not in my whole life have I been given such a treasure.”

“You had the treasure all along, Caroline. It was a teapot, but it was broken and you assumed it was destroyed. But now it’s been made into a new treasure for you.”

“Yes, and it’s more beautiful than it ever was,” said Caroline as tears moistened her cheeks, “because it’s been touched by your hands, Gretchen, and by your hands, Bella. It’s such a treasure.” She hugged them both.

“Did you hear yourself, Caroline? You said, ‘It’s more beautiful than it ever was.’ Remember, that’s how God works. He sweeps up all the broken pieces and puts them back together again.”

The tears that had only moistened Caroline’s cheeks now streamed down her face. The last few days had churned her emotions—playing her piano, completing “David’s Song,” and meeting Roderick. Her joy in what the future might hold had been clouded by fear and thoughts of her unfaithfulness to her love for David. It all seemed to erupt in this moment. “My life has been so broken. David disappeared in the jungle, and I disappeared in my music. I kept asking God why, and I never got the answer.”

“That’s because you’re asking the wrong question, Caroline.”

Bella stood quietly. Gretchen took Caroline’s hands and moved her to sit at the breakfast table. Caroline wiped the tears from her cheeks with the palm of her hand. “But I still don’t know why God would do such a thing.”

“You’re assuming He did it.”

“Well, if He didn’t, He surely could have prevented it.”

“Yes, He could. Not everything that happens is caused by God, Caroline. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes evil just steps in. But God’s always present to pick up the pieces. Look around you. God gave you your perfect studio. He gave you Sam and Angel and your family and your students. You’re not alone.”

“I know, and I’m ashamed for not being more grateful.” Caroline wiped her eyes.

“Do not be ashamed, Caroline. You’ve been broken, and I know about that. But remember, God is a potter and He takes the lumps of clay that we are and shapes them into vessels that can hold Him. When our vessels get broken, He just puts them back together again. It may take time, and it might not look just the same, but He’ll fix it. Just like Bella. Look what she did. Your teapot’s no longer a teapot, but it will hold beautiful flowers. Do you think God will do less with your life?”

“How did you become so wise, my friend?”

“Wise? Oh, not me. Whatever I know—it’s from living and looking and listening to God.”

“I want to hear Him again like I used to. I’ve just been in so much pain. I’ve stayed near people who hear Him and obey. I watch them and listen to them.”

“You’ve been wondering where He went. Your heart was so full of sadness and your mind was so filled with questions that you couldn’t hear Him. But He went nowhere, just waited for you to return. One day, when it is right, I’ll tell you the rest of my story. Then, you’ll see how I know.”

Caroline searched Gretchen’s kind eyes. “You’re such a gift to me—the two of you. Maybe God is using some of the broken pieces of your life to mend mine.”

Maybe, just maybe, we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking why, maybe we should trust and begin to look for what God will do to make sense of this tragedy, to make something good or better of it, and to mend the brokenness? God can do all of that, you know.

Click here, RETURN OF THE SONG, to read more.

Growing up in the shade of tall pine trees in South Georgia, I’ve always felt at home walking through a forest, the pine needles and moist humus under my feet. Such a quiet peace can be experienced there. But for most of my adult life, I’ve lived surrounded by concrete and deafened by the noise of a busy, crowded city. With every vacation or pleasure trip, we headed to a place to experience the peace and beauty of nature. My soul longed for it.

Many of those trips took us back home to see the family and hear the whispers among the pines, but we developed a love affair with the mountains from the Rockies in Colorado to the Tetons in Wyoming. For many years, we took an annual trip to Jackson, Wyoming in September. In late August, I began waking every morning to the anticipation of seeing the aspens ablaze in sunlight and sitting by a stream in the early morning and fishing on the Snake River.

The aspen trees in the Tetons in September were nothing like I had ever seen before. Before I learned about them, I was a good tourist and bought a packet of aspen seeds with the intention of having a grove of aspen trees in my Texas backyard. Silly me. When my attempt failed, I read about aspen trees. Then I understood.

Our photo albums from those years are filled with images of forests and streams where we stopped to observe, wonder, and sometimes worship. My beloved Bill took compiled photos and painted a large oil painting for me. It hangs in our home where I can take a deep breath and imagine walking that path again. I used the photo of his painting for this article.

I drew from those mystical and peaceful experiences to write this scene from THE UNWELCOME VISITOR AT GREY SAGE. Guests for an artists’ retreat are at the Grey Sage Inn in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Silas and Maude have arranged an outing for the guests with their Hopi friend Alo to guide them. Alo lives close to the land and to the ways of his ancestors. Take a walk through the forest with them. You might take a few deep breaths and close your eyes and just imagine.

Alo guided them into the clone of aspens and paused. “We walk into the quiet peace of these aspens that have seen many walk among them for over a century, or maybe two.” He spoke in whisper-like tones as though not to disturb them. “Look at them quaking in the breeze. These trees were likely here during the Civil War. You may think they’re individual trees, and in a way, they are. But if you could see underneath into the soil, you would see each one comes from the same root system—a root system that lies dormant, possibly for years, even decades, until the conditions are just right for their growth. Then they begin to break the soil and populate the area. Their home is in the high desert, and they can survive with little water, but they cannot survive without sunlight.”

Maude held Silas’s arm and thought that they and Alo and Lita were much like a clone of aspens, their family ties like those unseen roots seeming to appear from the same stock when the time and conditions were right. She knew that without Alo and Lita her vision of Grey Sage would likely not have been realized. Together, they all had been stewards of the land and of the inn.

Alo continued. “Aspens grow well in this environment, but I advise against planting one in your yard. They’re better left where they naturally grow and survive. Nature has its way, and aspens are its way of creating a mature forest.”

“How so?” the colonel asked.

“All part of a cycle designed by our Creator. Let’s say there is a forest fire or an entire forest is lost because of logging or disease. The aspens are the first to appear on the stripped land. They are fast growing because they only need sunshine to survive, so they establish quickly and keep the soil from eroding until the trees of the forest appear again. And when the trees return and grow to maturity and shade the aspens, the aspens die back from lack of sun. Their roots lie dormant until they are needed again.”

“God thought of everything, didn’t He?” Bea supposed. “Like I said yesterday to that young writer, you can ask what and how and why, but the most important question is Who.”

Maude chuckled, amazed at Bea’s insight, and more amazed that she could even remember yesterday’s conversation at the lunch table.

Alo nodded in agreement. “Yes, Miss Bea. The Great Creator even thought of a way for this tree to provide sustenance for the wildlife in the winter.” He led them closer to one of the larger trees. “Look at this bark. If I took my pocketknife and scraped and peeled away the white layer, there would be a layer of green that is like sugar. The elk and the deer know this, and even with three feet of snow on the ground, they can find food in the bark of the aspens. And this green substance is like the chlorophyl in green leaves, producing sugar that keeps the tree alive and growing even in the dead of winter.”

Bea was more curious. “Do it. Scrape it away. I’d like to see.”

Alo looked at her with gentle resolve. “I’ll not do that. I am glad you are so interested, but these trees are like elders. They have fought hard to live, struggling through drought and harsh winters. I will not be the one who wounds this tree and causes it to labor to heal its own injury. We will just appreciate its beauty and its determination. Let us walk deeper into the forest now.”

For the next half hour, Alo guided them through the aspens and into a grove of towering pine trees, the forest floor carpeted with pine needles. He stopped. “Now we are truly in the forest, and you are surrounded by ponderosa pines, probably eighty to ninety feet tall. They grow differently than the aspens that all come from one root system. If you could see underneath this stand of trees, you’d see that their root systems are entangled, but each tree has an individual tap root that may grow as deeply into the earth as the tree grows above the soil. The tap root is always in search of water.”

Alo stepped to Bea’s side and took her hand as they walked noiselessly through the pines. He led them into an emerald-green meadow bordering a quiet stream, its mercury-like water trickling gently over smooth rocks into a glassy pool of silver. No one spoke as they stood in wonder.

Maude looked at the group. They had the same look on their faces that she must have had the first time she came here, stepping out of the deep forest into this clearing. She felt she had walked into the Shepherd’s Psalm, a lush carpet of verdant grass and crystal-clear water touched only by God’s hands. She breathed in its beauty once again and thought how like the aspens and the pines they all were, bound together in some inexplicable way, each made by the same Creator, each with a unique purpose, and yet experiencing this sacred space together. For a few moments, Maude’s heart was at peace.

I hope you had a sense of peace and even a bit of wonder as you imagined walking with Alo, feeling the gentle breezes that made the aspens quake, and marveling at not only the visible beauty but also the unseeable design of the World-Maker. The Author of Life Himself always has a detailed plan to sustain life. Ponder those thoughts today. Thank God for those people who experience sacred space with you—those whose roots are entwined with yours and those who stand stalwart like the Ponderosa Pine. And thank Him for the quiet places that nourish your soul.

Click here to check out THE UNWELCOME VISITOR AT GREY SAGE on Amazon.

As the hair grays and the eyes grow dim, somehow our childhood memories become more vivid. This was one of those technicolor memories that fueled a scene in The Birthday Portrait. I was eight and was watching my three-year old brother as we played on the swing set in the backyard under the shade of the pecan tree. My swinging was peaceful and steady as my brother repeatedly climbed the ladder to the slide and yelled all the way down as if he were skydiving at ten thousand feet.

Then Tormentor showed up. He was a pesky older neighbor. The bully told my brother to get off the slide and proceeded to climb the ladder. I told Tormentor to stop, but he kept climbing and went barreling down the slide and knocked my brother off the slide, causing him to plant his face in the sand at the bottom. I can assure you there would have been some hair-pulling and slapping if I hadn’t been trying to console my brother who was screaming. So I joined him, yelling at Tormentor to go home before I called the police. I got my brother calmed down, took him inside, and told Mama I had something to do.

In less than a minute, I had crossed our large backyard, the neighbor’s yard, and the street where Tormentor lived. I stood in the ditch out in front of his house and began yelling for him to come outside. His mother opened the front door. Tormentor stood behind her. With my hands on my hips and before she could say a word, I let go. “Don’t you ever come to play at our house again. You’re not welcome. You’re just a big, bad bully, and we don’t like you. You’d better be glad I didn’t have my mama’s yardstick, or you wouldn’t be smiling. Mrs. Tormentor’s Mom, you’d better keep your brat at home.” And I marched off. Of course, by the time I got home, Mrs. No-Name had called my mother informing her of my tirade.

That wasn’t the only phone all Mama received. Apparently, I had become the afternoon entertainment for all the stay-at-home moms on the street. Now Mama was standing with her hands on her hips, and I got a scolding in spite of my explanation. But I do remember Mama had to work hard to keep from grinning.

Now to the scene from THE BIRTHDAY PORTRAIT . . . young Kate had tolerated a bully’s behavior as long as she could and took matters into her own hands in defense of her classmate and herself. She had one intention when she rose from the lunchroom table, but by accident it turned into something quite different. The bully wound up with a black eye, and they were both covered in spaghetti.

Somehow dealing with bullies is always messy, never clean, and Kate’s act precipitated a whole chain of events as an altercation with a bully often does. She and Eric found themselves in the principal’s office. Her father was called from work to come to the school. So was the bully’s mother. Kate and Eric were both disciplined by the principal, and now Kate found herself with a big assignment. Listen to the conversation around the dinner table that night as Kate’s daddy imparts wisdom, and her little brother Chesler is her cheerleader.

Kate made her case. “It’s like I told you in Mr. Jeter’s office, Eric had it coming. He deserved it. He kept saying mean things to me about Mama when we were in art class. And he made fun of my painting and nearly ruined it with his crepe paper. And all that time, I didn’t hit him or nothing. But when he started making fun of Cecil, and I saw Cecil’s face, I just had to do something. I was only going to bump him and dump my food on him, but when my foot slipped, and I lost my balance, then it all just happened.”

Chesler stood up again. “Kate, you gave him a black eye, and you dumped spaghetti on Eric, too?”

Daddy answered. “Yes, Chesler, she dumped spaghetti on him and herself. That’s what happens when you set out to dump meanness on somebody else. You can’t get by without getting some of that meanness on yourself. I hope you understand that, Kate.”

I thought about lying for just a minute, but I decided to tell the truth. “No, sir, I really don’t understand it. I don’t understand it at all. Eric is mean all the time, and he just gets by with it, and we have to put up with him, but Cecil . . . he just looked so sad, and nobody was taking up for him. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. So, I do one thing, and do I get by with it? Oh, no! I just get in big trouble.”

“Get down off your high horse, Kate. Why do you think Eric is mean all the time?”

“’Cause he’s just mean and full of mess.”

“He’s that all right. But there must be reasons he behaves the way he does. You need to think about that, Kate. And I dare say giving him a black eye will do anything to change his behavior.”

“But Eric won’t be messing with Kate anymore.” Chesler started clapping.

“No, unless he’s like the Halverson’s dog down the street. Mr. Halverson used to beat that poor dog for the least little thing, and one day, when Mr. Halverson wasn’t looking, that old bulldog just took a chunk out of Mr. Halverson’s leg. You remember when I had to go down the street to take care of him?” Daddy looked back at me. “I don’t want to be called back to the school to take care of you because Eric has retaliated. You need to think about how you’re going to keep that from happening.”

I mumbled under my breath so Daddy couldn’t hear. “I guess you better enroll me in karate lessons.”

“What was that, Kate? I don’t think I understood you?” Daddy asked.

I looked out the window for some help from the red bird. Before I could answer, Chesler just spewed. “She says she wants to take karate lessons.”

I stared Chesler down, and he knew he had finally gotten on the wrong side of my good side. “I didn’t mean it, Daddy, not really. I just need to think about it.”

“Maybe writing your essay on bullying will help you think about it. So why don’t you go to your room and get to it while I clean up from supper? And Chesler, you might just think about how you can keep quiet about all this. Words can do damage, too, and I haven’t thought very kindly about your words at the supper table tonight.”

Dumping meanness? Kate’s daddy was right. You can’t dump it on someone else without getting it on yourself, and it usually doesn’t turn out the way you intended. One must question if fighting fire with fire applies to bullies. Benjamin Disraeli, the English statesman and Prime Minister said, “Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.” I’ll let you decide if Kate and I were courageous or if we could have made better choices.

CLICK HERE to take a look at THE BIRTHDAY PORTRAIT.

“The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d, I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.” — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Whitman is right. Nature can be rude. If you don’t believe it, try growing roses. I’ve been a rose gardener, and I can assure you a rose garden can reward you with award-winning blossoms and completely frustrate you with the care required: watering, clippers, snippers, sprayers, special gloves, and odorous organic concoctions. And then you need disinfectant and tins of Band-Aids to doctor your wounds from the thorns. But somehow those first buds of springtime that grace the table and blooms that last through the summer bring with them a certain kind of forgetfulness about all the work to cultivate such beauty. As Whitman says, “. . . there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.”

I’ve spent hours pondering in the rose garden, thinking about the thorns and the beauty and fragility of a single blossom. I’ve wondered why roses required such care when the fringed, yellow blossom of a dandelion would grow through the cracks in stone. In my manicured garden, those pesky dandelions were weeds. But then I learned they had medicinal qualities and were a food source. Perhaps, it’s all in our perspective. And then I think of picking them as a young girl and of how many of my childhood wishes floated into oblivion on the dandelion’s fluffy seeds.

It was from these ponderings that I developed a scene in Freedom of the Song. Ned and Fred are sixty-year-old bachelor twins, simple, uneducated, yet hardworking honest men who spread their good-heartedness around Moss Point. In this scene, they are working in Miss Angel’s rose garden, getting it ready for the spring when Ned, the twin who does most of the talking, begins to philosophize about the thorns on the roses. Listen in to their conversation.

Ned moved down the fence-line, pulled out the white handkerchief from his back pocket, and wiped the sweat from his brow before he knelt down to prune the Belinda’s Dream roses. “Gosh dangit!” Ned loosened his shirt caught on a thorn. “I ain’t never figgered out why God had to put thorns on roses. You just think he coulda done better’n that. I mean these women just go ape over roses. Why couldn’t they get as crazy ’bout dandelions? Them dandelions’ll grow like hair on a sheepdog, and they ain’t got no thorns.”

“Maybe that’s why,” Fred mumbled.

“I think I finally figgered it out, Fred. I think I really figgered it out.”

“What?” Fred growled.

“’Bout the roses.”

“What about the roses?”

“Aint’ you heard nothin’ I been sayin? I was talkin’ ’bout roses and them thorns, and I got the answer. Just think ’bout it. Miss Angel use to be all the time workin’ out here in these roses—sprayin’, dustin’, mulchin’, waterin’, dead-headin’—always takin’ care of ’em, helping ’em grow in spite of them thorns. She don’t even see them dadgum thorns. She just sees the beautiful roses. Oh, she knows they got thorns, but havin’ a bouquet in her house is worth gettin’ pricked sometimes.”

“Uh-huh.” Fred moved closer to where Ned was pruning.

“Thorns is to remind us that sometimes we gotta bleed a little to get the beautiful things in life. I guess it’s just God’s way of makin’ us think about things once in a while. Thorns do that, don’t you know?”

“If you say so.” Fred kept busy and bags of rose and hedge clippings continued to grow as the sun headed toward its zenith.

“But you know what, Fred, dandelions can make you think too. I mean, just think about it. They grow ever’where, and they don’t need no sprayin’ and waterin’ or nothin’. You don’t even have to plant ’em. The wind just blows the seed and a new one comes up wherever it lands.” Ned worked for a moment in uncustomary silence. “Remember, when we was younguns and Paw told us to make a wish and it would come to pass if we could blow all that fuzzy stuff off that dandelion stem? You and me, we’d blow so hard—kinda like the north wind through the cracks in the barn. But one or two of them little things was always stuck good to that stem. You remember the day Maw caught us doing that? She come runnin’ out the front door with that green-checkered apron flapping in the wind, hollerin’ at us to stop before we had a whole front yard full of dandelions.”

Ned stopped to spit and chuckle. “You think Maw didn’t know the wind would blow them things off if we didn’t? It’s probably a good thing that folks like Miss Angel grows roses or else all of Moss Point and maybe the whole wide world would be covered in dandelions. Kinda makes you think, don’t it?”

I still don’t have answers about thorns and roses and dandelions, but I believe it truly has to do with our perspective. I like what Alphonse Karr says in A Tour Round My Garden. “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” Maybe a positive perspective reflected in a grateful heart is the answer, and rejoicing is always good for the soul.

Scene from RETURN OF THE SONG

Homesickness. A longing for home, for the familiar, and that intense desire often comes with deep sadness. The yearning though is not always for a geographical place you call home. It can be for a long-gone feeling that will never return. I’ve had such a homesickness, and it’s for playing the Hazelton Brothers grand piano that filled our living room when I was a child.

I was a wisp of a little girl. Because of my size and asthma, I was unable to do many of the things other children did. The piano and books became my world, my safe place. Books took me to other places, but the piano responded to me—something I could control. I spent so many hours “tickling those ivories” (as Daddy said) that the piano was almost like an appendage. The music floating through our home was often more than music. It was an extension of my emotions. Mama would enter when I was playing and ask something like, “What are you so happy about today?” or “Are you angry or upset about something?” Mama could always tell.

Those real ivory keys were home, and the vibrating strings resonated with my spirit. After I moved away for college, my parents sold that wonderful instrument and replaced it with a studio piano so that Mama could finally have a real living room. Daddy took me all over South Georgia and North Florida to play pianos until I found one that might be “home” again with a touch and mellow tones that would be familiar.

I’ve been separated from that Hazelton Brothers piano for more than fifty years, and if I close my eyes, I’m my pigtailed, ten-again self, practically having to stand to reach the pedal. I can still feel my fingers on the keys, the piano’s responding to me, and its warm tones singing in my spirit.

I’ve had a love affair with the piano since I can remember. Thus it was natural that the main character in the Rockwater Suite was a pianist. It’s what I know. I’ve been asked many times by readers, who also know that I’m a pianist, if I am Caroline. My answer is always the same. “No, I am not Caroline. We both enjoy our grits and share a love for the piano, but this is Caroline’s story.”

It was drawing on these vivid memories that enabled me to write this scene in Return of the Song. Caroline is a pianist whose life was changed when her fiancé David was killed only weeks before they were to be married. This scene is six years later on the anniversary of his death, and she’s having a sleepless night, remembering and wrestling with some life-changing decisions which will move her from the cocoon that has kept her safe. So, she does what I’ve often done when melancholy. She moves to the piano. Have a glimpse into her studio as she is remembering and playing “David’s Song,” the song she had been unable to finish when David died.

It had been exactly three hundred and sixty-five days since she had allowed herself to play this melody. At least outside of her head.

Caroline gazed out the window as she played its same notes over and over again. In six years, she had not been able to get beyond this one unresolved phrase. Clenched fists finally replaced her nimble fingers, and a strident, dissonant pounding arrested the melody like David’s death had halted her life.

At that moment, a shadow on the pond and a hasty movement across the water’s edge caught her eye. She stepped to the window. The tea olives next to the glass still shuddered. Her discordant pounding must have startled some creature.

She turned to pick up her tea. Standing so near that the warmth from her cup fogged the pane, Caroline wondered how many more nights she would find herself here, gazing through this glass. That was her life: looking through windows. Windows where she had glimpses of good things, then goodbyes.

Twenty-one years ago, she’d stood in Ferngrove, looking out the picture window in her parents’ living room, observing the delivery of her 1902 Hazelton Brothers piano, a seven-foot Victorian grand made of burled wood and accented with hand-carved scrolling. This piano had become her emotional vehicle, defining her and filling her hours. It had become her safest place. Her love affair with that instrument had charted the course of her life.

Nine years later, she’d stood at that same picture window as three movers, like pallbearers, removed her piano. The sale of it paid her college tuition. Often, over the years, she had imagined that piano, her first love, sitting in someone else’s living room responding to a stranger’s touch. Even now she longed for the familiarity of those ivory keys.

So, that’s the story behind the scene. Perhaps you’re homesick for a time or a place or a person that will not return.

In essence, C. S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory that our homesickness is for heaven. “The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last. . . . Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.”

If you find yourself like Caroline, yearning and looking through a window, I do hope you’re looking through a window into the brightness and possibilities of the future and that you’re seeing good things.

Click here to take a look at the book.

RETURN OF THE SONG

I do hope you’re experiencing an enjoyable summer of memory-making and that you’re finding cherished time with family, friends and perhaps with a good book. We’re barely into summer, and it’s been quite the unusual month bringing record cool temperatures and a horrendous flood just miles from us in the Texas Hill Country. Where we live was spared, but words cannot communicate the loss and the devastation in the areas hit the hardest. With many lives have been changed forever, these catastrophes come with many questions, and yet they come with reports of miraculous acts of heroism. Remember the advice Mr. Rogers learned from his mother during tragic events: "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." First responders are my heroes.

After the release of THE UNWELCOME VISITOR AT GREY SAGE, I’ve taken a bit of a break from writing. I have so appreciated hearing from those of you who read the book and found it enjoyable and even helpful. And I especially took pleasure in the photos some of you have sent — vacation photos of you reading the book, photos of dog-eared pages and thoughts you found meaningful, and even the photos of those who made the dishes like Lita’s Grey Sage Casserole. It’s one of my favorites. The recipe is in the book. No one has sent me a photo of the Black and White Cake yet. If you baked it and have a photo, please send it.

While on break, I’ve been working, and I have news.

· AUDIOBOOKS: All of my books are now available on Audible, and most of them can be found in the other places where you get your audiobooks. I suppose it’s a good thing that I’m a slow-talking Southerner who doesn’t write techno-thrillers. Maybe the Georgia drawl adds flavor to the stories.

· STUDY GUIDES: All of my books now have study guides. If you’re a book club member and want a study guide, you can download it for free on my website. I do hope they’re helpful and will encourage you to talk about these books with your reading friends.

· NEW BLOG SERIES: I get so many questions about where I get ideas for plots, characters, and scenes. Most want to know if they come from my personal life and experience. And yes, many do come from my memories, and when you’re as old as I am, there is a never-ending supply of those. So, in this series of articles, I’ll give you a peak into the real-life story behind some of the fictional scenes. These will automatically be sent to you in my newsletters.

· NEW LOOK FOR THE NEWSLETTER: You might notice a few changes in this newsletter. If you’re receiving this, you signed up for my newsletter, and you need to do nothing. I am now using Substack which is a platform that many writers are using. It’s cleaner and provides archives for making previous essays and articles accessible to the public. So, I hope you enjoy this and will share it with your friends. You also might just noodle around on Substack and be introduced to other writers and influencers.

Remember what Ralph Waldo Emerson said about the joy of summer. "Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air." And I add thinking of those flood victims, “Hug those you love like you might not get to hug them again, be generous to those in need, and pray for those who are hurting.”

Joy,

Phyllis

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