Lori Florida

“When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters. When Serug had lived 30years, he became the father of Nahor. And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.”  Genesis 11:20-23 (NKJV) I bet you didn’t memorize these verses in Sunday School when you were growing up. If you’re like me, your eyes glazed over as you stumbled through them to finish your Read Through The Bible in a Year plan. Maybe you think of Ancestry.com commercials you’ve seen and wonder about your own lineage. Did the line of your nose come from a distant descendant from a foreign country? Was your outlook on life shaped little by little as it filtered down from a culture you’ve never directly experienced? And the most weighty question: what legacy am I crafting for the generations who follow? If each word of the Bible is truly God-breathed and useful in...

We can’t dance. You might even use the word  terrible  if you saw us trying. I’ve always blamed it on a lack of practice rather than a lack of skill. Scott and I were high school sweethearts who attended all our Christian high school’s formal banquets together. I shopped for the perfect dress, stocked up on Aquanet so I could get my hair just right, got my nails done, and called the florist in time to have exactly the boutonniere I wanted. Scott vacuumed his car and gave it a good shine. He rented the shiniest tux he could find and requested a hot pink cummerbund to match my dress. We did everything our public school counterparts did. Except dance. We didn’t miss the dancing; our high school dating lives were full. But then there we were, ten years later, married with little children and suddenly wishing we had better moves to pull out at weddings and events. It looked so fun and effortless to swing, cha-cha, and mambo.  We’re both athletic and smart. We can lear...

It's his birthday, a day when we should be together.  But instead I'm missing him while I'm off on an adventure.  I love him so much.....that he's the kind of guy to send me off to Ethiopia on his birthday is just one of the millions of reasons. Happy Birthday Scott!!  I love you!! Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner

Some people might think it's morbid to think about your own funeral. It's not. It's actually smart.  "Begin with the End in Mind" is rule #2 in Stephen Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  I want to be highly effective.  Beginning with the end of my life in mind means I need to think about my own funeral. What's closer to the end than your own funeral? I remember being at my Great-Grandma's funeral not too long after I became a Mom.  Her name was Minnie Merrow and she lived a long life.  She outlived almost all of her contemporaries.  Most people at her funeral were family - children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.  The room was big and it was full.  Many people there I didn't even know but each was connected to my great-grandma. I only have a few personal memories of my grandma Minnie. She always kept chocolate chip cookies in her chest freezer and would let my sister and I eat all icy ...

Fairy tales make us think of princesses and castles and happily ever afters.  We ooh and ahh over the idea but secretly sigh with regret as the grown-up knowledge that fairy tales aren't the stuff of real life overtakes us.  We even start to use the term "fairy tale" to be a euphemism for things that can't possibly be true.  But we're wrong! We've been so blinded by that single, shining end moment that we completely forget everything that came before! The meatiest part of fairy tales, the part that's satisfying and keep us coming back for more is the part that's the most like real life.  Even in it's disney-fied form, the tale of Sleeping Beauty is full of darkness and struggle.  The happy celebration at the beginning quickly takes a dreadful turn as Maleficent appears.  Just hearing her name is enough to clue us into what's coming, but to make sure we understand, the castle is filled with darkness and the music turns minor.  Evil has ente...

There was a girl...who met a boy.  He politely offered a handshake under his nicely feathered hair.  Later that year, in the middle school gym, the girl gulped as she got up her nerve to ask for one of his green polo school pictures.  He gave it with a wish for "good luck with the guys" inscribed upon the back. A friendship began.  For the next couple years, the message on the back of the school pictures remained the same.  The girl cheered for his team, watched as he folded his warm-ups and politely placed them under his chair, and hoped....and she might admit, schemed a little, to get noticed as more than a friend. His attention magically fell on her near the beginning of her 16th year...the angels sang and the sunbeams shone.  School pictures from that time on had a new message...one of love and commitment. School pictures gave way to formal pictures, engagement pictures and finally, 20 years ago, wedding pictures. It's felt like a lifetime an...