Author Archives: rkdenlinger

With all her charges cared for, Joan turned in early to get in some much-desired reading time. She has become engrossed in a book about one of her favorite “mentors.” She is reading the new biography of Elisabeth Elliot. (I did good. I saw it featured through “Revive Our Hearts” and donated to secure aContinue reading “Encouraging Holiness”

Three times a day, the plate that sits quietly on the counter in front of my kitchen sink reminds me that, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”  I have had many vicious storms in my life. I have begged God to remove them all,Continue reading “Dancing”

(by Joan) One hundred thirty-five days ago, life drastically changed for our family of six when we were given the recommendation by our state to shelter in place. Three of our household members are considered high risk – they would not fare so well if COVID would enter our home. Because of this, we haveContinue reading “Fantastic Friday”

For our family, this is day 90 of our version of shelter-in-place. Don’t want you to feel too badly for us. We just got back from Freeze and Frizz where we could meet up with some family while socially distancing in the breeze. We aren’t in prison, like many members of nursing homes. As toContinue reading “Cautious / Driven by Love”

Joan and I had no idea how relevant the above topic might be when RHMA wrote and asked if we would be willing to give a seminar at their Lancaster Conference this coming October. Then, when Covid-19 hit, we offered to do a “practice presentation” by video to the missionaries of RHMA when their AprilContinue reading “Caring for Others When You Have Significant Needs Yourselves”

Do you feel like your home is a zoo right now? I sure do! Which made me think about Noah’s wife who (not original with me) lived in a zoo for a year! Talk about “sheltering in place!” She couldn’t even go outside for a walk when life got too intense inside those boat walls.Continue reading “Our Zoo”

So I can’t thank you enough for your prayers through the night. Kari has a treasure in her “jar of clay” body. And that treasure is an amazing strength she has from the Lord. Ron and I went against medical advice yesterday. The neurologist-on-call yelled at me to call 911 and get her to theContinue reading “A weak vessel”

Thank you for the prayers! It was a long night for Joan who was at Kari’s side and tuned in, making sure she kept breathing, waking her if her oxygen level dropped too much, repositioning as needed, etc. We aren’t seeing any seizures this morning! And she still has a low grade fever, but notContinue reading “Kari is better this morning!”

Kari’s seizures went out of control today, after being worse than average the last couple weeks. We gave her a rescue med – so far so good but we won’t know for sure until it wears off completely. Will the seizures return? She also has a low grade fever and has for nearly two weeks.Continue reading “Pray for Kari (and for us)”

Joan sits by the bed of our daughter. A few weeks earlier Kari had major surgery on her spine. We were warned that she would be in the OR for a long time (as much as twelve hours), but the silver lining was that we could expect a very brief recovery period. It would beContinue reading “A “Social Distancing” Story”