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A Message from the Cabin

I learned to walk on your front porch. Kissed a boy there too. Painted my toenails with my cousins on your sunny deck. I’ve done dishes with Grandma and Mom and now my grown daughters overlooking your mountain lake. Your coffee pots are nearly 50 years old and so are you, my dearest cabin. Your battered and worn dish pans have bathed babies and watered horses and boiled crawdads. We were born the same year. You’ve seen so much of me, and I’ve loved so much of you. Your quiet mornings and lazy afternoons. Your starry nights and thundering rain storms. Your shy […]

By Paula July 5, 2016

Please Pray for a Miracle and Go Camp with your Kids

Please pray for a miracle of healing for our friend, Chris Decker. Father of six adorable children. I grew up with Chris’ wife, Nancy. For years our families camped every summer at the same mountain lake. By God’s grace both Nancy and I ended up with handsome husbands and half a dozen kids each, plus one more for me. Thirteen children between the two of us. Today I stood with Nancy in Chris’ hospital room. Last Thursday Chris suffered a terrible heart attack. He’s in a deep coma now. “God has work to do.” Nancy said this afternoon and I […]

By Paula June 29, 2016

He Restores My Mountains

What a difference a year makes. Last year for Father’s Day we went to our cabin. In grief. In drought. In desperate hope that things would be better next year. Here’s a picture of our dock from last year. The next picture is our lake this year. If a picture is worth a 1000 words I can make this blog post short and sweet. The God who restores souls also restores mountain lakes. And mountain meadows… The meadow is so green this year, and the wildflowers are all back. When I walked this meadow last year it didn’t give under […]

By Paula June 21, 2016

It’s Old Fashioned, but it works

I love the farmer’s markets. The slow stroll of the people carrying their fruit and veggies and lavender and jam. Holding the hands of their children and their old folks, sipping sunshine and social graces, and the sweetness of a long, summer day. There’s no computers, no video games, and I rarely see a customer on a cell phone at the markets. People are walking together. Talking together. Doing what people do together at these slow-moving markets. Gathering food and friends the old-fashioned way. The old-fashioned way. Like that sweet, little town on the Andy Griffith Show. Because this world needs more Mayberry, I […]

By Paula June 15, 2016

In Honor of Billy… When the Hope in You is Fierce

We met Billy in Budingen, Germany in 1992. There were castles, beer, the shepherd, and Billy. That’s how I remember Germany. It all started with a rugby game. At least I think it started with rugby. . . We were in our early twenties and all of us a bit homesick for the United States when rugby season began. I would pack a cooler of juice for Cami and water for me and the boys and we’d sit in the bleachers off by ourselves watching the game. I don’t remember any other children at the rugby games. Lots of lonely, […]

By Paula June 7, 2016

We Gave Away Our Teenagers

They were so cute when they were tiny. No mess. No problems. And then they became teenagers. A lot of mess. A lot of problems. They outgrew the heat lamp. They outgrew the box. They outgrew us. So we gave them away. “They were so much easier when they were little,” Scott said awhile back as we watched the ducks swim around in their baby pool on our back porch as the sun went down. Scott wasn’t talking about our growing ducks. He was talking about our older kids. I’ve shed a lot of tears and lost a lot sleep […]

By Paula June 1, 2016

What Was I Thinking

My life has changed. I’m now a duck commander as well as an author. Last week in a rainstorm on Highway 20, I nearly ran over a tiny critter on the road. I didn’t even know it was a tiny critter. I thought it was a dirt clod. Until it jumped up and ran away from my tire. Two itty bitty critters racing back and forth as cars whizzed by and rain poured down. I really didn’t want to stop. I wasn’t going to stop. I kept driving and watched one of the little critters nearly die in my rear […]

By Paula May 24, 2016