Serve by Design

In a recent article, I mentioned buying a bread cutting guide for my daughter. It was inexpensive, but much appreciated. She immediately texted back her gratitude with this exclamation, “Best gift ever!” That may seem to be a little over the top until you try your hand in processing several loaves of crusty sourdough bread with just a cutting board and bread knife! If you desire uniformity and you want the slices to be even, you need a guide to accomplish the task! A guide for perfect bread slicing! I confess to being a perfectionist and so does my bread-making daughter. She cares enough about what her loaves look like to put a heart at the top of the loaf as a sign of pride and affection. Since her married name, Hartman, has the sound of “heart” in it, this final decorative touch becomes the perfect seal of approval! As human beings, we can speak of perfection only in relative terms. Only God is perfect in every way! That’s why He gives us His Word, the Bible, to be our guidebook. W...

Our beloved granddaughter, Eloise, has a growing collection of various-sized Squishmallows. She has given a name and voice to each one. This is “Eloise being Eloise” who delights to use her creativity and imagination to entertain family, friends and of course, herself. These soft, plush stuffed animals, food items and other cute things in her menagerie surround her at home and some even travel with her to school, church, restaurants and playdates with friends. When Eloise can’t be in certain places at times because of her busy schedule, she requests that her daddy, Matt, take her stuffed friends on road trips to greet family in her place. So, sometimes you will see an extra passenger belted in the rear seat of his car! We enjoy how Matt relishes these opportunities to introduce Eloise’s “squishy friends” to us and as a result, we know by experience how charming and comforting each of them are to embrace! Of course, we are "required" to document these occasions with a pictur...