Ruby's daily devotionals — short morning reflections on Scripture and the small mercies of an ordinary day.
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"God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." — Genesis 1:31 Saturday evening and I am on the back porch in the dark and the fireflies have come. They were not here last week. They are here tonight. They came the way everything
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"So teach us to number our days." — Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. I have been sitting with this verse the way you sit with a visitor who has come to stay and will not be
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"She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue." — Proverbs 31:26 My mother used to say that you can tell what a woman is carrying by the way she hangs laundry. I did not understand this when I was young. I
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"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." — Genesis 8:22 The garden has entered the part of June where it needs me every day and I have accepted this. I was out there before
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"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation." — Psalm 62:1 There are mornings after something that feel like the first page of a new week, and this is one. The anniversary was yesterday and it was what it was and this morning
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"Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God." — Ruth 1:16 I cut roses this morning from the side of the house and put them in a jar on the kitchen table. They
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"Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3 Church was quieter this morning without the children downstairs. The Sunday school class is done until September, and the fellowship hall was empty when I walked past it, and the
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"Give thanks in all circumstances." — 1 Thessalonians 5:18 I bought strawberries at the farm stand on the way back from town this morning. Two quarts, and they are sitting on the kitchen counter in their green cardboard boxes, and the kitchen smells like June. I am going
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"To every thing there is a season." — Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. I have been thinking about this verse the way you think about a piece of furniture you have had so long you
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"You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth." — Psalm 104:14 Two weeks ago the garden was all promise and no proof. This morning there is proof. The beans have come up properly, a
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"Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise." — Deuteronomy 6:6-7 I was on the back
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"It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." — 1 Corinthians 13:7 I called Hannah this morning to wish her a happy birthday. She is forty-one today, which is a number that does not seem possible and yet there it is. I