Emily Parke Chase
One hot summer day, my husband Gene and I took our oldest son and daughter to a local street festival. Prisca sat in the stroller, securely strapped in, but Tim was walking on his own. Almost 20,000 people had gathered for the event. We were pushing our way through the throngs of people …
Read More Advent 2013, Day 4When our daughter Prisca was dedicated as an infant at our church, she freely expressed her distress at being held by anyone other than her mother. Her wails, growing louder by the moment, soon filled the sanctuary and flustered the pastor. Anxious to move through the prayer of dedication, in his haste, our pastor …
Read More Advent 2013: Day 3Yesterday I dandled a friend’s baby on my lap. What a sweet lump of flesh! Despite drooling and clumsy efforts to hold a toy, he charmed all in sight. What a contrast to a night or two earlier. That night I lay awake in the wee hours of the morning while my son …
Read More Advent 2013: Day 2For over thirty years, our family has used the first 24 days of December to prepare our hearts for Christmas. Each year we have focused on a different devotional theme for those few weeks. The themes have included 24 different names of God, 24 items on God’s Christmas wish list, 24 transitions Jesus experienced …
Read More Advent 2013: Day 1Here’s one more devotional for the woodworking series before we move into December and the newest series of 24 Advent devotionals that round out each calendar year. Be sure to return to this site daily during December as we prepare our hearts to celebrate Christmas! (You can find the rest of this series by …
Read More Stains and scars…In cartoons and sitcoms, the amateur do-it-yourself man usually hits a thumb with his hammer, so one day I asked my cousin, “Have you ever injured yourself while working in your shop?” He laughed and held up his hands. David’s hands betray his history as a woodworker. He learned his lesson the hard way! …
Read More Scarred for life…(You’ll find the rest of this devotional series on my author’s page.) Wood has a special warmth to it. Unlike other artistic mediums like stone or clay, wood has life. While the wood was yet part of a tree, roots absorbed water and nutrients from the soil, sap flowed through the …
Read More Of life and death…Morgan was a good friend of our family. He died recently but he often came for Sunday dinner after church and joined our family for holidays like Thanksgiving and Easter. Sometimes he brought a gift of candy or a book, but the gift I enjoyed the most was an intricate set of nested …
Read More Facing the right direction…Back again? So glad you came! Here’s the eighth devotional in my series on woodworking. My cousin built a little desk made of solid cherry wood. Soft pine would have been easier to carve, but when a pen pressed down on the writing surface, a dent would remain. The cherry wood’s hard surface …
Read More Hard wood or soft…Here’s the seventh in my series of devotionals on woodworking. The rest of this series can be found on my author page! Enjoy! Every piece of wood has a will of its own, a unique grain. A skilled woodworker will examine a piece of wood carefully to ascertain the direction of the …
Read More A will of its own…