A Door of Hope

Teresa Poucher  Who couldn’t use a door of hope right now?  We have hopes things will get better.  Spiritually, we know God will pour out of His Spirit in the last days.  The former and the latter rain together.   What has to happen first?  If we would read Hosea chapter 2, it will give us a good idea.   “…and she went after her lovers, and forgat me,

False Alarm

Teresa Poucher  Some 38 years ago, my husband and I and our children went to the DMV in Baton Rouge. My boys had to be around 2 and 4 years old.  I don’t know if they had computers then, so the lines were slow-moving and crazy long.  My husband got in line while I corralled my children in the lobby.  While I was managing them,the oldest pulled the fire alarm.  Oh my!  I

What are you Talking About?

Teresa Poucher Amazing how fast we can slip into our old ways. Genesis 8: Noah and his family make it out of the ark. He builds an altar and sacrifices to God. Chapter 9: God blesses them and gives man a covenant, signified by the rainbow. Noah gets drunk,and Ham looks upon him. Chapter 10

More Than You Bargained For

Teresa Poucher       Don’t you love it when you get more than you bargained for?  It seems we are often looking to buy something, and it ends up costing more.  You buy a car — you mean it doesn’t have floor mats?  I like it when they fill it up with gas and give you free oil changes.  Maybe you went on a

What’ Your Verdict?

Teresa Poucher   “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it behooves us all not to talk about the rest of us.”  Robert Louis Stevenson.     I had a dear friend whose mom used to quote this to her quite often.  My friend very

Are You in the House or the Field?

Teresa Poucher We moved to Livingston parish in 2004. We built a new house, and I wanted to plant some saplings. I got the shovel out to start digging and jumped on that shovel for about 5 minutes but didn’t move more than a half-inch of dirt. I needed a pickaxe. The ground was nothing

Multitudes, Multitudes

Teresa Poucher   Immigrants are coming into the United States by the millions.  My mother was an immigrant; she came from Germany.  She was born in 1935, so she has memories that could give us nightmares.  Yes, she remembers Hitler, and she overheard Nazis telling Jews to go to the train stations where they would take them to a better place.     I’m thankful for

Hope for the Hopeless

Teresa Poucher   If one has been in church for even a year, you will hear “faith, hope, and charity.”  You’ve heard it preached many times: God is love!  There are many what we call faith preachers.  When was the last time you heard someone preach on hope?     “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these

Go ahead and Invest

Teresa Poucher   I have arrived; I am officially a senior.  Like most people at this age, I’ve begun taking inventory of my life.  What have I accomplished?  It doesn’t bother me that I’ve never had a high-paying job, maybe because I didn’t have a higher education.  Sometimes, what the world calls success is vanity.  King Solomon speaks of this in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes.   I’m thinking about a familiar passage

Neglect

Teresa Poucher I love dogs. Very close to us, there are 15 or more on a property where no one lives. These dogs have excellent care. They are free to go inside an air-conditioned shed any time they please. They are well-fed with good dog food. They are up to date with vaccines and their