Posts Tagged ‘journey’
A humble life: considering others through intentional acts of kindness
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. ~ Philippians 2:3 Although I’ve been blessed with a 36-year marriage to my real-life hero, Bob, a sweet friendship with our daughter, Bailey Ann, plus wonderful family, friends and dreams come true, as another birthday sneaks up…
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Behaviors that trip us up: rooting out the stumbling blocks
Not long ago as I walked through our property, I tripped on a small tree stump but caught my balance. The next time, I wasn’t as fortunate and pitched forward to brace myself with my left arm—which I’d broken and had repaired two years earlier—then rolled onto my right side. For several weeks afterward, I…
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The meaning of prayer: breaking it down
During my husband’s and my move from Arizona’s Southwest Valley—to a small town located along the Mogollon Rim that borders the Coconino National Forest—we left our old lives behind to begin a new adventure. At one point, a vehicle passed us with the words “Keep praying!” sprayed on the back window. I smiled to myself,…
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After the leap: beginning a new journey
If you follow my weekly blog posts and receive my Always the Write Time emails, you’re privy to a fresh leap of faith my husband and I recently took. Rather than live with a retirement mentality, we prayerfully chose to retire “early” (by social security standards). We also sold our home and packed up our…
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When you achieve happy-ever-after: what comes next?
The less time you spend dreaming up a world of happily ever after, the more time you’ll have to actually live… ~ Abby McDonald When you achieve a dream or a goal, do you ever consider what comes next? Predictably, in fairytales and modern-day romances, the two love interests ride off into the sunset. Yet…
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Synchronicity at work: trusting the power of prayer
syn·chro·nic·i·ty | \ ˌsiŋ-krə-ˈni-sə-tē , ˌsin- \ plural synchronicities: the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events… that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality… ~ Merriam Webster In my post, “Divine interruptions,” I wrote about a power outage—an incident that occurred summer of 2021 when my husband and I…
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Looking back: recounting the past to inform the future
As we approach the final days of 2021 and look toward the new year, it’s the perfect time to recount the milestone moments that paved our way to present, so that we can better inform our future. Looking back on my own journey, I celebrated the publication of my first two fiction stories — five-minute…
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Getaway of a lifetime: Day 3 (or recognizing the signs)
While exploring acres of forest preserve within Arizona’s White Mountains during our recent getaway, my husband and I soon learned the terrain in the northern part of the state differs from the trail systems in the Valley. With only a picture map on our cellphones as pilots, we relied on blue reflective diamonds strategically tacked…
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The roles we play: to lead, to follow or to go our own way
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust I set the pace on a recent sunrise hike, my partner close behind. A little over halfway around our weekly “loop,” he assumes the lead to finish out the 4+ miles. My energy at first keeps us…
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How to find joy in the journey: a ‘retirement mentality’
Finding joy in the journey. It’s a cliché, right? Because how can you find joy when you’re digging in the trenches, managing a household, caring for an aging parent, grieving a loss — not to mention coping with global, and even local, unrest? Self-help books and speakers tout the need to detach our focus from…
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