Serve by Design

This past weekend, we have been dealing with our first snowfall of the season. It has been a heavy, wet snow that has steadily blanketed our village with an impressive eight and a half inches of accumulated snow. The day before, on Friday, our granddaughter, Chloe, helped us put the ornaments on the tree and then we did some last-minute grocery shopping. It was the calm before the storm, and we were getting prepared should we be snowed in for the weekend! Image credit: www.freepik.com On Saturday, as the snow began falling, Monique and I sat comfortably in the family room admiring our Christmas decorations. The lights on the tree and mantle were having their usual seasonal effect. It was just after one o’clock as I was entering a hypnotic state and was almost asleep when the first of two back-to-back thunderous claps jolted me fully awake. Monique was startled as well and exclaimed, “WHAT…WAS… THAT?” While still processing what I had heard, I tentatively replied, “That was thunder! But...

I must confess that there were numerous occasions during my first year of college when I prayed that something would “deliver me” from having to attend a required lecture that I may not have had much interest in and considered boring anyway. In every instance, my prayer for divine intervention was denied! Well, one of our college grandsons had a recent experience that prevented him and his class from participating in a lecture by a professor with a strict attendance policy. Ben (center with white t) relaxed and ready for his Art History lecture! Ben had come home after a week of studies at Texas State and was awaiting a final lecture with slides in his favorite Art History class just days before the Thanksgiving break. His dad offered to chauffeur him on the hour-long drive to campus for the Monday evening class. It was a win-win decision that gave Ben some time to collect himself without the distraction of driving and his dad some welcomed one-on-one with his eldest son. Upon their a...