Gravel Road Musings

Stamp! Stamp! Stamp!  The deposit stamp clunks down on the checks as I prepare them for deposit. I can predict that I will soon hear a pattering of feet and animated requests of "Do my hand" Do me".  All because one time, for fun, I stamped the back of their cute, little hands and now every time they hear it, they come running. It's a ritual now, one I question if I should bring to an end, but....I think it will end on its own soon enough and all that will be left will be the faint memory and silent longing for those "littles" days.  So, for now, I let them run around with a stamp on their hand that says, "For deposit only --------" But the thought struck me this week as I yielded to their request: what if it really were that easy? Just a stamp and they were secure. The stamp guarantees that that check will be deposited into our church's bank account. How handy would it be if we could just stamp little pudgy hands and it would guar...

It's post-Valentine's Day and everyone is basking in the afterglow of a holiday filled with hearts, chocolate, flowers, and fancy dinners. Right? Or not? Isn't this what the holiday is made for? Isn't this what every young girl dreams about when they think about the day they will get to share Valentine's with their special someone? Is it really love if you don't do all of these things and experience all of the feels? I remember our first Valentine's Day. It was two weeks before our wedding and we were filled with all the hope and excitement of our life together. Everything was roses, though I couldn't actually tell you if I got roses or not, though I'm guessing I did, because, of course, that was expected. (And that was an awkward sentence.) We went out for supper at one of our favorite restaurants in Wausau, waited for an unremembered length of time, had our meal and left. What did we eat? I don't remember, though I'm sure we had cheese cu...

The Charleston church shooting, A victim's husband, and the Path to healing and peace. On June 17, 2015, Dylan Storm Roof entered the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He went down to the fellowship hall, joined a Bible study, and as they finished the study with prayer, he got out his gun and shot 77 times, killing 9 people, and horrifying a nation. He calmly walked out of the church, got in his car and left. His reason? They had the wrong color skin. His tracker showed that he drove to another church that same evening, sat outside for a few minutes and then left. His regret? Absolutely nothing. And yet, two days later, at his bond hearing, Reverend Anthony Thompson stood up and publicly forgave Dylan, imploring him to give his life to God. This book was different than I expected. While giving a lot of details about the shooting and the trial, it also pulled in a lot of other hate crimes and really centered the most on Biblical forgiveness.  I was expecting ...

The Untold Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Faith Was Dwight's faith in God real or was it political? That is the question this book works to answer. Since I knew basically nothing about Dwight Eisenhower, this book was interesting to me in just hearing about his life and who he was. Some of his previous biographers wanted to say that his faith was only political because he didn't get vocal about his faith until he was the President.  Dwight was the only President to be baptized while President. He also joined a church for the first time after he was President. He chose to wait until after he was President because he didn't want people to think that it was for political purposes. One of the most fascinating things I learned in this book was that Dwight or Ike as he was called, was born into an Anabaptist family. His grandpa was a minister in the River Brethren church in Abilene, Kansas. Dwight's own parents left the River Brethren and his mom became a pretty ...

A novelization by Chris Fabry based on the motion picture by Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick. I get invested in my books, I can hardly put them down and need to know how they end. I can put a book down and go wow! that was good. But it takes a new kind of book to make me cry, but this book made me cry, a few different times even. This morning as I finished it, I wondered if my blanket was going to be wet with my tears because I could feel them running down. I'm not even sure if I can describe why the book made me cry, but it touched me and now I really, really want to watch the movie. A reviewer I read said this was a feel-good story. I'm not sure I can agree with that. Yes, it had a good ending, but I'm not sure I can totally call it a happy ending. It was a blessed ending, a Jesus ending, but there was a profound loss as well. Hannah is a young girl, who was raised by her grandma. She struggles to make friends, she has a bad habit that gets her kicked out of sc...