It was the end of December, the time between the Christmas rush and welcoming the new year. It was a week of pause and I began asking God for a word to guide me into the new year. What posture or focus was I to have as I welcomed 2026? I heard the phrase, ‘open-handed’ and wrote it down in my journal. The language seemed foreign to me-a phrase I don’t often use, but I felt somehow God was in it. Then on New Year’s Day, I went down to the barn to do my normal goat milking routine and from the...

This Sunday at church we began worshipping. About midway through the first song, our worship leader exhorted us to not just wait for the feelings to come in our worship, but to speak to our soul and tell our emotions to line up with God's truth. I then heard the phrase in my spirit, "high praise". There was an old song we used to sing at our house church back in Indiana and the lyrics went something like this, "let high praise come forth among us now, let a sword be in our hand..." I kept...

One sunlit morning when I was finishing up milking, I noticed that one of my goats looked pregnant. It was the middle of June and kidding season had passed several months ago. Normally goats get pregnant in the fall and give birth in the cooler spring months before the hot Texas summer weather sets in. This goat was definitely pregnant! She would probably be giving birth in the heat of late summer, an unseasonable time for sure. Although surprised, I was elated! Jilly is one of our best...