Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Bent and Tangled The tree looked dead. A passerby wouldn’t find it attractive. Its trunk leaned to the side. Its bare branches stabbed the air at odd angles to each other. A couple of taller branches looked stunted from some injury. Further away in the parking lot, other trees

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement The Power of a Smile A smile is as valuable as medicine. A smile has the power to lift our spirits like a good antidepressant makes the user feel better. It carries us to pleasant places beyond the trouble at hand, like a tranquilizer. It lifts spirits and strengthens

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Rich in Friends Making a church central to your daily life offers one of the most amazing advantages to our existence. Churches offer the wonderful atmosphere that fosters lifelong, treasured friends. There is something amazing about how, when you are united in worship of God, when you pray together,

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Cousins As an only child my cousins were of great importance to me. Older cousins taught me a lot about getting along with others. Little eyes are constantly watching and absorbing helpful principals when exampled around them. Younger cousins gave me lots of opportunities to learn how to entertain

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Brainy Thoughts We consider our nutrition as we plan our menus. We exercise when we want to keep our muscles in shape. We try to go to bed early or take a nap when we feel tired. Do we ever consider how we are feeding our brain with our

Mary’s Monday Musing to Quilt Encouragement Our Thought Life “Thanks, Dad, for the deep bargain on these avocados.” I looked across the grocery store tomato display to see who was speaking. A lady, wearing her hair in a stylish top knot, bent over to pick up a bag of avocados, but no one else stood

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement A Child’s Perspective The perspective of a three-year-old often delights us. Our precious three-year-old great grandchild recently visited us in our retirement community. She relished every moment of her time downstairs in the community indoor pool. Now she asks to return to “Mammy’s big house and swim in Mammy’s

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Online Help There is a vast group of helpful people out there who earn their living patiently shepherding people like me through the mysteries of online shopping. Here’s to the extreme patience of these beleaguered souls who withhold a groan when they are so unfortunate to pick up their

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Healing A simple cut seems like a little thing, but it can hurt and continue to aggravate long past when it seems such a small thing should bother us. Whenever something goes amiss in the way our body functions, we have a choice. A cut, a bruise, or things

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement Competence Whenever we need medical help to recover from some health difficulty, we have an opportunity to appreciate the doctors and nurses who perform their skills with such competence as they work to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it. We can consider the years a