By Nicole

Tonight, I am sitting on the bed in my hotel room, staring in the face of a buffalo.  He's on a flat and somewhat shiny canvas.  When I look in those dark, sad buffalo eyes, a familiar ache returns.  An ache I thought would just fade away as the days went by.  But since it hasn't, I'd better get it down. Earlier this week, as we traveled through the north end of Denver in a taxi van, we drove by the homeless mission.  Just before dinner.  Almost dusk.  And the square was full.  This was a sight I think I thought I had seen before, and I was prepared to breath calmly and let us pass by... without giving it a second thought.  Until my coworker gasped.  She'd never seen this before.  Never imagined those who live this way.  My other coworker snorted.... something about this being just like Tampa. I wasn't going to give it a second thought.  We help the homeless and poor on a daily basis. That's my job.  And it jades ...

Three weeks ago, I read a newspaper article about a family I know.  About a boy that I have visited with and given hugs and yelled at to slow down in the hallways of the church.  About his frustrating condition that I've known about and prayed about for a long time.  I've known about it all, but the article gave me chills.  I immediately felt like I needed to write about Phoenix and try to help "spread the word".  Teresa gave me permission to dedicate a blog post to Phoenix and to link up to their website .  I wanted to link up to the article too, but it isn't online any more.  Their letter explains it all. Right now my Missionette's class is working on the Healing badge.  We are learning how, no matter what our sickness is, God wants us to pray for healing and to have faith and hope that we will be healed (James 5:13-14).  We covered some sensitive issues around why people get sick.  Many people argue that God c...

The thing I dread the most is losing one of my children. Just the thought terrifies me. And of course, being a paranoid, crazy mother, just about everything sends my thoughts in that direction. That being said, I then begin to feel guilty about being so terrified of death and dying when I serve a God who is in total control. We can't run from death, we can't avoid the inevitable, and we live in a fallen world where tragedy happens every day. I do my best to comfort myself with the thought that my faith and relationship with God could get me through the worst possible thing. Recently God has been working on me. On my pride, on my procrastination and on my presumption that He doesn't care or need to know about every little thing. Leilee was recently diagnosed with a branchial cleft cyst or fistula, which is, most simply put, a hole in her neck. We are waiting for our appointment at Children's... they can't get us in until December. Instead of falling on my kne...