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For Wilshire Baptist Church

“Are you having a good day?”

That’s what I asked the woman sitting across from me behind thick layers of protective glass at the Social Security Administration office on Central Expressway. I was there Wednesday afternoon to deliver a document required to complete my profile for future benefits.

I asked the question after she had asked me a long string of questions to verify my identity: full name, birthday, place of birth, address, spouse’s birthday. She had stopped asking and was making keystrokes on her computer, so I asked my totally unrelated question to fill the awkward silence: “Are you having a good day?”

Continue reading “Human Encounters”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“Myrtle is blooming,” I said early one morning after I opened the shutters in the dining room and looked out to see a few tufts of deep pink. We went out a few minutes later to walk to the park but first stopped by the little crepe myrtle near the street to confirm what I’d seen. Yes, it had bloomed!

LeAnn and I have been in our house 13 years, and we’ve put a lot of work into our flower beds and raised-bed vegetable garden. We’ve had a lot of success, but we’ve also logged a pretty good list of missteps, mistakes and good intentions that just haven’t worked out, or at least not at first and not as planned. 

Continue reading “But it Bloomed!”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

There’s a name missing from Wilshire’s Care Notes beginning today: Cooper Wade Hampton, our nephew. I had his name added to the Military Service section of the notes many years ago after he went to U.S. Marine Corps boot camp, but I’ve retired his name as he’s retired from the service after 20 years.

I get Care Notes by email every Monday through Friday and it helps me focus on those in our Wilshire community who need our prayers. Scanning the categories every day — Area Hospitals, Rehabilitation, Hospice, Others in Need of Prayer, Friends and Family Concerns, Condolences, Congratulations, Military Service — I watch for newcomers to the lists and updates on those who have been there. Mostly it serves as a prayer guide, but it’s also a sort of snapshot of the ebb and flow of life in our community — our joys and sorrows, comings and goings, transitions.

Continue reading “Guide for Prayer”