By Nancy Patrick Ray Miller, the new senior pastor at First Baptist Church, has been preaching a series of sermons entitled Messy Grace. These sermons have reminded me that God’s grace is not always neat and tidy. Life itself is anything but neat and tidy.  My human nature tends to be mean, selfish, and ugly—the opposite of God’s grace which

By Nancy Patrick I recently watched a movie with the strange title The Minute You Wake Up Dead and immediately questioned the writer’s sobriety when he wrote that title. However, as the plot progresses, the point becomes clear that the question refers to a person’s eternal destination when that time comes. The movie is by no means spiritual or even

By Nancy Patrick My dad used a phrase to refer to someone or something he considered useless as “not worth a plugged nickel.” In my old age, I think that phrase may relate to my own sense of worth or lack thereof. For many years I enjoyed an abundance of energy, a good brain, a rewarding career, and a relatively

By Nancy Patrick On July 20, 2025, Dr. Matt Cook, my interim pastor at the time, preached a sermon that has bothered me ever since hearing it. I read the passage from Jeremiah 12 repeatedly during the sermon and have continued reading it and looking up commentary on it. I’m not sure why the topic of unfairness has troubled me

By Nancy Patrick On Saturday, July 12, my husband and I hosted a memorial reception to honor my late sister, Peggy Smith Burkman, who died Jan. 10. Because of complex relationships in her life, the family had postponed the celebration to honor her. In spite of the delay, I think all who attended experienced a time of understanding and healing.

By Nancy Patrick I think I have become more naïve in my senior years than I was in midlife. I ponder such ideas as motivation, value, family, forgiveness, understanding, and all the other virtues Galatians 5:22-23 lists as fruits of the Spirit: joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I want to believe that most people exhibit goodness.

By Nancy Patrick I used to love playing with kaleidoscopes. I hardly ever see them these days, probably because people can do so many entertaining things on the computer. The kaleidoscope  is small, personal, and physically manipulated by the user. The kaleidoscope never bored me because every time I twisted the end cap, all the bits of colored plastic rearranged

By Nancy Patrick I just had a shocking revelation about myself. As I looked through old essays I had written years ago, I thought I might find one to revise and send to Loretta for Spirit of Abilene. I found the title “An Immodest Proposal: A Perspective on the Survival of the United States.”  I thought, “What a great title!”