Sundays with Suzanne

I took care of the paperwork to make my move to North Carolina final. And I couldn't be happier. What's next?

Are you are Martha or a Mary? Does that question make you bristle as much as it does me? Well, listen to this 10 minute inspirational message to find out how I finally put that sore point to an end!

I visit the Ashe County Farmers Market in West Jefferson, North Carolina and the most interesting discovery are the people on the other side of the table.

Let the Spirit move you! My mother was raised in the Pentecostal church. She experienced the Holy Spirit as a physical manifestation, speaking in tongues. She often said  that she wished that I could experience Holy Spirit as she had. I have not spoken in tongues, but I have experienced the Holy Spirit as inspiration to be better and do better in the face of my own selfishness, because God’s Love...

Here's the latest audio version of my newsletter, plus a recipe and a what I'm reading now. I'm calling it Sundays with Suzanne.

Kiki passed away on Thursday. After she had stopped eating earlier in the week, I took her to the vet to find the cause. The blood test came back normal, then the vet took Kiki back to the x-ray room. Within minutes, the vet called me back to join her. On the screen behind her was an x-ray of Kiki’s lungs. The vet pointed to five tumors on Kiki’s lungs. Kiki was 13 years old when she passed, I ado...

Have you thought about what you want to do with your retirement year? What will give them meaning? 

All the books in a library are merely fire kindling if we don’t read and learn from their content. The finest woodworking tools are decorative chunks of metal if we don’t put them to work. So it is with all the types of prayer and even our precious Bible, if we don’t use these tools to spend time with God each day, and if we don’t learn to listen for his still small voice.

What a difference this simple sentence has made. I not only say the greeting every morning when I sit down to pray, I also find myself saying the words at random moments through the day because they warm my heart. When I say them, I feel God close to me, and that is an answer to prayer.

This year while I search for my home and a sense of physical security, I will focus on my spiritual security, and doing the things that I know will remind me of God’s ever present light, his love for me. What will your word of the year be in 2023?

This season reminds us that Jesus, the Son of God, knows our broken hearts, has felt the warmth of our tears, the exhaustion in our bones, the hunger in our belly, the loneliness in crowded room. He healed broken bodies, and he will heal our broken spirits. You are not required to do any more than you can right now. Only remember that you are dearly loved and that your life matters.

I’ve never been good at waiting. When I was a child I would crawl beneath the Christmas tree branches and shake the presents to see if I could guess the contents, because I did not want to wait until Christmas day.

Thanksgiving is meant to be family gathering, especially when our families are far flung, and our meetings intermittent, or annual at best. But too often, what was meant to be a joyful, becomes a rehashing of old grievances, political, religious, or mis-remembered childhood events. What I learned this week is that in addition to giving ​thanks, we can give grace. Giving grace means knowi...

Getting established and making new friends is something I am very familiar with. Why did I think it should be any different this time, is it because I am older? The irony of course, is that as we get older it is almost certain that we will have to move to a place where we may not know anyone, leaving behind our community to start all over again where we are strangers, even if it is on the happy oc...

All Souls Day is a way to honor our loved ones and I know we are meant to remember that they are now in the joyful embrace of God and enjoying a heaven that is more beautiful than our limited imaginations can conceive. Death is a new beginning for them as well as us, and because we are human, I hope we will also give ourselves space and time to jealously admit that we still wish they were here wit...

I do understand the frustration of unanswered prayers and unanswered questions of faith and church hierarchies that feel exclusionary to at least half the population. In the past when I read of yet another sexual abuse scandal by a pastor or a priest using the authority of their position to prey on young people, my anger would compel me to want to leave the Church. In the past I considered these o...

Our grief may make us feel like turning inward — to replay our favorite moments with our beloved over and over again. But we must not allow ourselves to be completely cut off from the exterior world, because that is where our future lives. So, as we move through our grief, we must do so while performing this delicate dance of caring for our broken heart, realizing that part of caring for our belov...

I strongly believe that my walk of faith should not be yours, nor yours mine. An authentic walk of faith is a private matter between you and God and one which you must choose to pursue or not to pursue, each day.

What should we do as we face a new chapter in life? For me it was turning 60 and losing my mother. This episode begins the quest of considering how I will live the final third of my life.

Like blinders on a horse, I seat myself at the front of the church so I can mind my own business. How often do I make erroneous assumptions about the prayers of those around me? I see someone who appears to be financially well off in the pew to my left and think they have not a care in the world, not realizing that they are praying for a child who hasn’t spoken to them in years. I see a family who...

Very often, when I am sitting with an unanswered prayer, here’s what I want to say to God: “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!” — Psalm 4:1 I want to know that I am heard. I want God’s consolation even if the answer I receive isn’t ultimately the one I want. But I want a visible sign that I am hea...

Ending our year and beginning a new one with a thoughtful reflection lets us see we are stronger than we believed and our lives are richer then we imagined. We discover grace surrounds us on more days than not. Instead of a list of resolutions, find yourself some quiet time this week, and reflect on the past year: What good thing did you experience? Are you proud of yourself for keeping an importa...

An unexpected snowstorm. And in this hour before sunset, the sky has cleared enough for the lingering rays of the sun to cast a delicate wash of pink across the newly fallen snow. This beauty can make you feel cozy and secure or desolate and lonely. My decorations are up, my first round of Christmas cookies have been baked and given out. Handel’s “Messiah” plays in the background as I move around...

It occurred to me that not only did the road engineers not need my help, but they could see the result of this construction project when I could not. I had not needed to be worried all those months. Simultaneously, it occurred to me that this was a very fitting analogy for what my prayer life can feel like.

Over the course of this podcast, I have spent more time reading, thinking and writing about God than I have in the previous 54 years of my life. And what have I achieved? Do I feel enlightened? Have I attained a higher level of consciousness? Actually not at all. To be honest even if I spent the next 50 years continuing my pursuit of God through books and prayer, I don’t think I would be any more...