“Better? Or, worse?” If you wear glasses or contact lenses, you understand immediately that I am referring to focus. Optometrists ask these two questions over and over again as they refine a prescription for vision remediation. Having gone through this process many times since I was in my twenties, it still amazes me that it can take several tries to get it right. The end result is worth the effort, though. Clear vision is a breath-taking gift. The human eye will focus and refocus, depending on the distance of each object of attention and the available light. After I’ve spent a number of hours working at my computer, it always…

The week ahead looms. After all these months of planning and preparing, after a multitude of meetings and conversations, after hours and hours of reading manuals and puzzling solutions, the testing and validating of parameters and mapped data will begin. Having climbed the mountain to get to this point, this next bit is steeper than any terrain traversed thus far. As a group, my co-workers and I are mostly excited to see how it will go, but there’s quite a bit of nervousness, too. So much is riding on this part going well. Converting core data systems is not for the faint of heart. In addition to customizing the parameters…

The wind sounded like a freight train as it roared through the valleys on either side of the mountain. We had already lived through three days of torrential rain, and the backside of the storms had brought 40 mph winds. As I lay next to my husband in our shivering tent, I wondered what it would be like not to hear either the rain pounding or the wind howling. It seemed an age since a time of quiet. I pondered our relative equanimity in the face of these mighty elements and gave up a prayer of thanksgiving for the Lord’s care and protection. We both believed He had sheltered us,…

We’ve got some dear friends. Dear enough and brave enough to go camping with us. So here we are, the four of us pretty far into our golden years, sleeping in tents, cooking over an open fire, and carrying around upon our persons that unique fragrance, eau de campfire. It is a precious gift to have such friends, with whom you can share the mundane and frivolous as well as the hardships of life and the deep and rich things of God. And being confined to a small campsite, we find there are good number of hours in which to pursue many and varied topics. As we relax together and…