My hubs with his sappy mama a few years ago.

 

Several years ago, I tagged along one day when my doctor-husband made rounds at the community nursing home. Things were pretty normal, and slightly unsettling, as they always are when one encounters advanced age and infirmity. In one room, a sweet saint greeted us from the bed where she spent her nights and days.

“Doc,” she said, “Why am I still here? I’ve asked the Lord and asked the Lord to take me home. I’m no good to anybody. I can’t do a thing but lay here.”

My wise husband looked around the sparse room and then out the window. School buses were pulling up across the street at the local high school. “Well,” he said to his patient, “you can still pray, can’t you?”

She could.

“Some of those kids probably don’t have anyone else praying for them. Maybe that’s why you’re still here.”

His response became a seed in my imagination. The seed eventually sprouted into a book series called The Glory Circle Sisters. The church ladies in these books are well-described in this portion of the psalms.

“They will still yield fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and very green.” Psalm 92:14

I’ve made it my goal since then to lead a sappy life. To lay up more treasures in Heaven than on earth. And to tell stories that encourage the sap in readers. The first book in the Glory Circle series is currently getting a face-lift in the form of a new cover. Watch for that reveal in a few days. Then, coming in October is Book #4, The Marvel House, which features the very sappy Madge Dupree.

On this Labor Day weekend, we will celebrate the contributions of workers to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. (According to the US Labor Dept..) Let’s also celebrate the contributions of those who labor from more restricted life circumstances. Let’s remember the saints who pray.