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Merry Christmas from the Bicknell Family

I know many of you get our Christmas letter through the mail, but for those of you who don’t, I wanted to share with you our letter on my blog this week. Thank you all so much for reading my little stories. I always pray for God to bless each of you with His loving kindness. We close this year grateful for the Lord’s blessing upon our lives. Our big news is that we’re expecting a baby on the first day of spring, though to most of you, this news isn’t big. Or even surprising. Still, we are happy to […]

By Paula December 14, 2010

My Dog Evie

Yesterday I cried over a dog that’s been gone twenty years. She was a pit bull named Evie, a fifty pound mass of muscle with cropped ears and a jaw like an alligator. Most people were afraid of my dog Evie and I liked it that way. She was my protector, my sidekick, and my best friend for a difficult season of my life. Just writing about her now, I get all weepy. Evie was a Christmas present from my husband Scott the first year of our marriage. Actually, she wasn’t a pit bull. She was a blue-blooded American Staffordshire […]

By Paula December 2, 2010

JEALOUSY and GRACE

I’ve heard that the most dangerous calls law enforcement responds to are the domestic kind. Especially disputes between a husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. These are the house calls that kill people. Stepping between two lovers, especially in the jaws of jealousy, can be deadly. It’s been said that more police officers have died coming between a man and his wife than any other police intervention. When we think about love bringing death this way, we usually assume some rejected guy has gone off the deep end because his lover tried to leave him, but I’ve been studying […]

By Paula November 18, 2010

The Dinner Table

Tonight we had a family dinner. It came as a surprise considering it was squeezed between an after school soccer game and a late night soccer practice under the lights of a high school football field.As we all took our places at the table for the gift of a half hour together, a fierce wave of gratefulness washed over me. Sad to say, family time at our house has become a battle. The fight focuses on finding time to just be together. The older kids are off to this sport or that activity or to work. Sometimes, I think they […]

By Paula November 10, 2010

FIVE BOYS

When I was 18, I sat down one day and planned out my life and then prayed for it to come true. Who I would marry, how many children we would have, where I would live, how my career would go: all sunshine and roses in the yard and writing, writing, writing… AND five boys… That’s what I wanted, five little boys. Scott and I were dating and he was my husband of choice. I vowed that our handful of handsome boys would grow to manhood knowing how to put the toilet seat down for their wives. Of course, I […]

By Paula November 3, 2010

DO OVERS

I feel like I’m in a do over. As a Christian, this frustrates me because why didn’t I get God’s lessons right the last time? I’m talking about lessons learned while pregnant, but the issue isn’t really about having another baby. The issue is dealing with the same old feelings about the same old things and hearing God echo exactly what He’s said to me on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth go around.I’ve learned these lessons before, why do I have to relearn them again?I recently read a book called the The Sacred Echo by Margaret Feinberg. […]

By Paula October 28, 2010

Come Away My Beloved

One of the devotions I read is called Come Away My Beloved by Frances J. Roberts. It was first published in 1963 and was given to me by one of the most godly among women I have ever known, Pauline Berry. I was going to put this entry into more modern terms for you all, but decided instead to just copy it straight from the page so I didn’t mess it up. I read this devotion today and felt compelled to share it on my blog for this week. I hope it arrows through your heart the way it did […]

By Paula October 9, 2010