Another year's Freshman Retreat rolls back around (listen to episode #40 for last year's) and I serve in specific way which adds at least a little bit to the day.

I missed a couple of days recording as I was sick with a bad cold. This time allows me to experience God as the Broken One who is near when we struggle and fall ill.

I am touched with gratitude and nostalgia as I hear my teen son singing in the shower.

I enjoy faith and fellowship Sunday evening and feel and hear God singing to me when I listen to a friend singing Bib Dylan's song "To Make You Feel My Love"

I have two very different parts of my day - chill in the morning and early afternoon and much hustling at the winery in the evening as it got so busy that a regular customer helped me out!

I have the day off of school but need to wait for my son during a long appointment. I work in the morning in the library and the afternoon in a coffee shop.

I write and pray a prayer today for the six types of live identified by the Ancient Greeks. And after experiencing love of my school after watching a fun competition and then having a special moment with my teen daughter, I wonder if there are even more kinds of love for which we need new words.

My school community hears from a father who lost his daughter in a car crash caused by distracted driving. My students and I take The Maria's Message Pledge to not drive with manual, visual and/or cognitive distraction.

I go back and listen to the episodes I recorded one year ago this week and am struck by my thoughts and feelings right after the Parkland school shooting. I experience God in the remembering of those horrible days.

My classes and I pray a prayer that I wrote to ask God to guide our leaders in compromising so the government doesn't show down again on Saturday.