By Darlene Franklin ~ Psst. Let me tell you a secret. I am—Clash! Bang! BOOM!—WARRIOR WOMAN! The transformation felt awkward and strange at first, definitely mostly unwanted. This is what happened.

By Darlene Franklin ~ I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. My heart is stirred whenever I hear the music of Sousa and Springsteen et al. The fact President Eisenhower added “under God” to the pledge the year I was born (1954) increases its hold on my heart.

By Darlene Franklin ~ What would you do if you knew you only had six months to live? That question confronted me during a recent close brush with death. A blood clot had formed in my lungs. I filled a tiny red notebook provided by the hospital with thoughts on how to leave nothing important […]

By Darlene Franklin ~ What unexpected twists my life has taken in the nursing home. Sometimes I’ve soared. Other times, it’s quite dark, like the day I returned from the hospital after a pulmonary embolism and acute respiratory distress.

By Darlene Franklin ~ God the drill sergeant calls from heaven: “I don’t know what you’ve been told, something new has taken hold. Love the Lord your God like this: Heart and mind and soul and strength.I don’t know what you’ve been told, I’ll lead you back to something old. Love the Lord Your God […]

By Darlene Franklin ~ As a baby boomer, the revolution that rocked America in the 1960s rubbed off on me. Not everyone agreed with what I considered absolute truth, and I wanted to know why. The answer began in the past. A survey of our great philotophers pointed to the downward spiral.

By Darlene Franklin ~ I’ve never been to war. Neither had anyone in the desert-hardened Israelite army as they prepared to fight for the land promised to them by God. How did they feel? Nervous, excited, scared, raring to go? Imagine how they felt, all 600,000 of them, when all they did was to march […]

By Darlene Franklin ~ As the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle approaches, I remember watching Charles and Di. A generation later, Americans are as fascinated as ever with royal weddings. According to the New York Post, we remain fascinated by royalty because they embody national unity in a unique way. (Presidents tend to polarize.)

By Darlene Franklin ~ Do you remember headlines that drove the daily news in 2017? Top local and national stories zeroed in on sex crimes. guns and nuclear weapons, uncertain leadership, mass shootings. News also recycles at the nursing home where I live: troubled residents, people diagnosed with serious illness, family, deaths.

By Darlene Franklin My daughter, Jolene, committed suicide ten years ago this March. My world stops for a few seconds when I say those words. I still feel the enormity of the loss, the emptiness left in her wake. The wound has healed, but the scar remains.

~ By Darlene Franklin ~ Although we can’t escape God’s love (Romans 8:39), our experience of it works more like a magic trick. Imagine: An empty cup sits next to the full container of God’s love. God’s no-matter-what loves showered creation with lovingkindness. He shouted it in His written word and wrote in the Living […]

~ By Darlene Franklin ~ How do I rest in God when drama occurs daily? Five minutes at a time. I lived for many years with a daughter who suffered from borderline personality disorder (BPD). BPD is characterized by pervasive instability—moods, relationships, self-image.

~By Darlene Franklin ~ Tapiwa Gwenlisa “Gwen” Marange founded the International Albinism Awareness Initiative in Zimbabwe in 2015. Since then, she’s led the nation’s first International Albinism Awareness Day, and organized a team to help women, teens, and children with Albinism in a country where they are misunderstood, stigmatized and mistreated.