I like comfortable shoes.
I like stylish shoes.
Sometimes it is hard to find a pair of shoes that fit both criteria.
Sometimes you have to make a choice.

When I find shoes that are both comfortable and stylish, I will get a few pairs.
I don’t mind having similar shoes in different colors.
Shoes are functional.
Shoes are an accessory.

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The choir came forward from the back of the church.
Each choir member was dressed in the long choir robe.
Each choir member took his or her place on the risers.
I looked at the familiar faces doing what they love, for the Lord they love.

I looked at each one, my brothers and sisters in Christ.
They sat waiting until it was time for them to sing.
They each had the folder of music in their lap.
They would have practiced this song during the week before they actually sang on Sunday.

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I sat with the people.
I was thinking about what I had just learned about the audience.
So many times, we think that the audience is us.
How wrong we are.

I had many things to learn.
We do not come to be entertained.
We come to participate, to be the actors in this play of life.
We sit all together but we all come from different backgrounds and places.

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I have a hummingbird feeder.
I found it at a garden center.
I have never seen anything like this one before.
It is not the usual plastic kind with the red accents and the artificial flowers.

This one is made of glass.
It is actually a red Ball glass jar.
It is inverted on a metal base.
It even has a metal rim around it for the hummingbird to rest on.

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It was so nice to catch up.
She moved away almost a year ago.
She is in a new place, which is totally unfamiliar and strange to her.
She is with her husband and children but this move was hard.

I have lived in three different houses in my married life but they were local moves.
Everything surrounding my moves was familiar.
Everything surrounding her move was unfamiliar.
I told her I admired her and I meant it.

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I have had a summer of stillness.
That is what I have called it.
It has been a summer of listening, watching, thinking, and pondering.
It has been a summer of trying to hear the voice of God speak to my heart.

When you talk about the voice of God, many think that you mean an audible voice.
I wish.

That audible voice of God has already spoken on the Mount of Transfiguration.
This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him. (Matthew 17:5)

I’m trying!

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I received a letter from a friend.
She told me that she wanted to share one of God’s Whispers with me.
It warmed my heart to think that listening for Whispers seems to be catching on.
She knew that I had been searching my heart this entire summer.

She knew that I have spent months listening.
Listening in order to still the din of the world.
Listening to the sounds of each day.
Listening to my own heart.

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There is a store in Amish country I love to visit.
I enjoy walking through the various departments.
A Mennonite family runs the store.
The female sales clerks wear lovely homemade dresses and a white covering on their head.

The store is neat and clean; the shelves are full.
You can find seasonal decorations, cards, books, housewares, clothes, shoes, and toys.
There is a fabric department in the back and that is where the women congregate.
There is even an Amish department that sells black suits, white shirts, and straw hats.

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When I am in the kitchen, I wear an apron.
Not the little ones you remember from the Leave It To Beaver days.
Rather the long aprons that go down to your knees.
The aprons made of homespun fabric that have pockets in the front.

My apron has become my trademark.
It will stay on all through dinner, unless we are having company.
It may even stay on then, if I forget to take it off.
It protects my clothes; it can wipe water off of a glass when it’s humid.

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This past weekend I celebrated my birthday.
Fifty-six times around the sun.
Of course, birthdays are a time to look ahead.
They are also a time to look back.

I remember when I turned thirteen years old.
I was biting my nails at the time and my mother desperately wanted me to stop.
She figured that a special ring would be just the incentive I needed.
It was the last gift to be opened after dinner.

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