Blog

For Wilshire Baptist Church

While hiking the Window Trail in Big Bend National Park recently, LeAnn said, “I have to keep remembering to look up so I don’t miss anything.” I found myself thinking the same thing.

She was stating a common problem for hikers, especially when the terrain is rugged and steep. You need to keep your eyes on the ground so you don’t misstep and twist an ankle or take a tumble, but you also want to see everything you came out on the trail to see, and that definitely isn’t the dusty ground. On the Window Trail, there’s plenty to see when you look up: towering cliffs and jagged uplifts of rock; green junipers, oaks and pinion pines; bright blue Mexican jays; the pink blossoms of Mexican buckeye and desert willow; spiked prickly pear and cholla cactus; and an amazing array of rugged succulents like agave, yucca, sotol and nolina.

Continue reading “Stopping to Look Up”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Fifty years ago today, on April 6, 1971, my sister, Martha Ann Hampton, age nine, died from injuries after an automobile accident on our way to my grandparents’ house for Easter. Nobody else in our car was seriously injured, but our lives were changed forever.

Continue reading “Front Page News: Joy”

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“Looks like I need to brush the powdered sugar off my shoulders.” 

That’s what I told LeAnn on Palm Sunday morning as I got ready to dress up for church for the first time in more than a year. I pulled my blue blazer down from the upper rod in the closet and found that the shoulders were covered with a fine white dust that looked like powdered sugar. The same was true across the top fold of my dress pants. Neither garment had been touched in more than a year.

Continue reading “Brushing off the Dust and Powdered Sugar”