Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it really means to follow Jesus Christ.
We often talk about faith as if it’s a destination, something we arrive at once we’ve learned enough or become good enough. But the more I reflect on my own walk with God, the more I realize it’s a lifelong journey. God isn’t looking for perfection overnight. He’s patiently shaping us, teaching us, and changing us one step at a time.
One phrase that has stayed with me is the idea that God is preparing a people who know His voice, feel His Spirit, and are willing to follow Him wherever He leads.
That kind of discipleship is both beautiful and challenging.
A few years ago, I found myself facing a decision that felt overwhelming. I had prayed for direction, but no clear answer seemed to come. I wanted certainty. I wanted a detailed roadmap. Instead, what I felt was a quiet assurance to simply take the next faithful step.
Looking back, I realize God wasn’t asking me to see the entire path. He was asking me to trust Him with the next step.
That experience taught me something important: faith isn’t always knowing where God is leading. Sometimes faith is choosing to follow even when you can’t see very far ahead.
I believe Jesus Christ lives. I believe He knows us personally, loves us completely, and is actively involved in our lives. Even when I don’t understand everything that’s happening around me, I find peace in knowing that He does.
More than anything, I want my life to reflect a simple but profound choice:
I choose Christ.
Not just on Sundays.
Not just when life is going well.
Not just when it’s convenient.
I want to choose Him when prayers seem unanswered. I want to choose Him when life feels uncertain. I want to choose Him in the ordinary moments that rarely make it into anyone’s testimony but often shape who we’re becoming.
One of the most moving thoughts from this message was the desire to be able to say to the Lord:
“I am Yours, totally and completely, without reservation or condition.”
If I’m honest, that’s easier to say than it is to live.
There are still dreams I cling to, plans I want to control, and questions I wish God would answer more quickly. Yet every time I try to hold too tightly to my own expectations, I’m reminded that God’s perspective is so much greater than mine.
The invitation Christ extends isn’t merely to believe in Him. It’s to trust Him. To know Him. To follow Him. To place our lives in His hands and believe that wherever He leads is better than anywhere we could go on our own.
Today, my prayer is simple:
“Lord, help me hear Your voice. Help me recognize Your Spirit. And wherever You lead, help me have the courage to follow.”
Because at the end of the day, above every other choice life offers, I want my life to say:
I choose Christ.
Reflection: Can you think of a time when God asked you to trust Him without showing you the entire plan? Looking back, how did that experience strengthen your faith?
Sometimes the greatest testimonies are built not in dramatic miracles, but in the quiet moments when we choose, again and again, to follow Him. ❤️
I had been researching my grandson, Forrest’s family line and discovered the name Isaac Pemberton — a Philadelphia Quaker who lived during Revolutionary times. As I imagined what it might feel like for Forrest to receive this ancestor’s story as a birthday gift today, the picture of a small leather-bound booklet came to mind. Inside it, he discovers the tale of a man who stood for peace when the world demanded war. This is that story — written for Forrest, and shared here for anyone who values courage of conscience. Happy Birthday, Forrest!
⭐ THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T RAISE A GUN
A Birthday Story for Forrest
(Based on the life and era of Isaac Pemberton, Philadelphia Quaker, 1775)
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🌿 Prologue — The Package
Forrest didn’t expect anything in the mail that day. Bills, sure. A flyer or two. But not a small, hand‑wrapped parcel with his name written in his grandmother’s handwriting — the kind that looks like it took some time.
Inside was a leather-bound booklet, soft and worn, like something meant to be kept. The first page held only a single line:
“Every family has someone who stood up when it mattered.”
He turned the page.
And the story began.
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🌿 Chapter One — A City on Edge
Philadelphia, 1775.
The city was loud with talk of war. Blacksmiths hammered iron into musket barrels. Tavern doors swung open with arguments spilling into the street. Men gathered in clusters, whispering about rebellion, loyalty, and the price of freedom.
But inside the quiet of the Quaker meeting house, Isaac Pemberton sat with his hands folded, listening for the stillness he believed God spoke through.
He was twenty‑three — the same age Forrest once was when life felt heavy and uncertain. Isaac wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t a politician. He was a craftsman, a helper, a man who believed peace wasn’t weakness but discipline.
One morning, militia officers arrived at the meeting house with enrollment papers. Every able-bodied man was expected to sign. The officers stood at the front, calling names, handing out quills.
Isaac felt his heart pounding. He knew what refusal would cost him. He knew what people would say.
But he stepped forward anyway.
“I cannot raise a gun against any man God has made.”
The room went silent.
Some men looked away. Some shook their heads. One officer muttered under his breath. But Isaac didn’t waver.
He set the quill down.
And walked out.
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🌿 Chapter Two — The Cost of Conscience
Refusing the militia wasn’t just unpopular — it was illegal.
Within weeks, Isaac’s tools were seized. His horse was taken. He was fined more than he could pay. Neighbors whispered that he was a coward. Others said he was a traitor. Some stopped speaking to him altogether.
But Isaac kept working.
He repaired fences for widows whose husbands had gone to war. He carried water for the sick. He shared bread with families who had less than he did. He helped anyone who knocked on his door.
He refused violence, but he never refused people.
One afternoon, a group of men confronted him in the street.
“War is coming,” one said. “You’ll let others fight for your freedom?”
Isaac answered softly, “I will work for peace as hard as you work for war.”
They didn’t understand. Most wouldn’t. But Isaac didn’t expect them to.
Courage, he believed, wasn’t always loud.
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🌿 Chapter Three — The Night of the Wounded Man
It was late when Isaac heard the knock.
A young soldier — barely older than Forrest — collapsed at his doorstep, bleeding from a skirmish outside the city. His uniform was torn, his face pale, his breath shallow.
Isaac lifted him, carried him inside, and tended his wounds with steady hands. He boiled water, tore cloth, whispered prayers.
The soldier looked at him through half‑closed eyes.
“Why help me?” he asked. “I’d have shot you.”
Isaac didn’t hesitate.
“Peace isn’t so much a belief,” he said. “It’s a practice.”
The soldier survived. Isaac never told anyone. Not the meeting. Not the militia. Not even his family.
Some acts of courage don’t need witnesses.
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🌿 Chapter Four — The Quiet Rebel
Years passed. The war raged. Isaac continued to refuse militia service, loyalty oaths, and anything that required him to harm another person.
He wasn’t loud about it. He didn’t make speeches. He didn’t argue in taverns. He simply lived his conviction every day, even when it cost him.
He wrote his story in a small journal — not to boast, but to remind future generations that courage comes in many forms.
He wrote:
“Some men fight with muskets. Some fight with conscience. Both require bravery.”
Those words became the final page Forrest read.
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🌿 Epilogue — Forrest
Forrest closed the booklet and sat quietly.
He didn’t know everything about his ancestor, the “first American conscientious objector.”He didn’t know everything about his own future. But he knew this:
He came from someone who stood firm when the world shook.
Someone who chose peace when anger was easier.
Someone who survived hardship without losing himself.
And maybe — just maybe — that strength runs in him too.
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Stories like Isaac Pemberton’s remind us that courage doesn’t always look like battlefields or banners. Sometimes it looks like a single person standing quietly, refusing to bend against the weight of the world. I wrote this for Forrest, but I share it here because we all need reminders that strength can be gentle, and that peace can be brave. May this story — and the blessing that follows — be a light for anyone walking their own uncertain road.
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🌿 Closing Blessing
A Blessing for Your Path
May the road before you be steady, and may your steps be guided by the quiet wisdom that lives within you.
May you find courage in gentleness, strength in compassion, and clarity in every new beginning.
May the God who shaped your ancestors shape your days with peace, purpose, and a light that never dims.
And may you always remember: you are part of a story still being written — one marked by resilience, hope, and the quiet bravery of choosing what is right.
About a year ago, I wrote a post about what motivates me. My answer then was simple: love. The love of my family, the love of my Heavenly Father, and the love I feel when I think of our Founding Fathers. I also shared my determination to organize and complete the many manuscripts and research projects I had accumulated over the years.
Today, I can happily report that I have made progress.
Not as much as I would like, perhaps, but enough to remind me that every step forward matters.
Over the past year, I have opened more forgotten files, rediscovered more research, and spent countless hours revisiting projects that I once feared might never see the light of day. Some of those old documents have turned out to be treasures. Others have required patience, reconstruction, and a little detective work. That’s all part of the adventure.
What continues to amaze me is the amount of material I gathered over the years. Every folder seems to lead to another story, another ancestor, another idea worth preserving. Sometimes I wonder what my younger self was thinking when I started all of this. Then I find a note or outline and realize I was trying to leave something meaningful behind.
The dream of writing books connected to our grandchildren remains very much alive. Those stories, built around real ancestors and real lives, still matter to me. Perhaps even more than before. The older I get, the more I appreciate how easily family stories can be lost if someone doesn’t take the time to preserve them.
My sense of urgency has not diminished. If anything, it has grown stronger. But I’ve also learned that progress doesn’t happen all at once. It happens one page, one chapter, one recovered file, and one remembered story at a time.
Financial challenges are still real. Life still finds ways to interrupt even the best-laid plans. Yet I remain determined. The motivation that drove me a year ago is still here. In fact, I think it may be stronger now because I can finally see evidence that the work is moving forward.
So what motivates me today?
The answer is still love.
Love for my family. Love for the stories of those who came before us. Love for the generations that will come after us. And the hope that something I write may someday inspire, comfort, or help someone else understand who they are and where they came from.
That seems like a worthy reason to keep going.
Thanks for being here, and thanks for reading.
Feel free to share.
Shirley
Aug. 20, 2025
“What motivates you?”The prompt’s question for today is: what motivates you? I can easily answer this question.
What motivates me is the love of my family. It’s the love I feel from my Heavenly Father. It’s also the love I feel when I think of our Founding Fathers.
Each expression of love comes from deep inside me—deeper than my heart. I’ve felt the lack of that love from each, and it’s even more precious because I feel like I’m missing out. Not necessarily because of anything they are doing, or not doing, but because of my own misgivings.
I am very motivated to work on these manuscripts I’ve had, some, for a very long time. I want as many of them I can find to be prepared for my family to publish, if I can’t do it myself. I have a strong impression that these books each have an important message to give. To whom, I don’t know. Maybe its my family, maybe its someone I don’t know. But this has been a motivating force in my life for a while now.
It is such a joy to open a file and discover that there’s a lot of material I left for myself to use. So much research!
On the other hand, it is excruciatingly painful to see that the file is corrupted or I have forgotten the password. Yes, that hurts. But enough of them have opened successfully, that I’m on a cloud.
I am not talking about one or two books. Nope, I had plans to write one book for each of our grandchildren, and dedicate it to that child. At the time, we had 16 grandchildren. I found the list. It included each child’s name and the topic of the book I intended to write. Each of the protagonists in the stories was an actual ancestor of that child.
For many years, genealogy was my hobby. I loved collecting the names and stories of our ancestors, many of them tragic, some uplifting, and I wanted a way to share this with our grandchildren.
So, all this is my motivating factor. I hope to complete as many as possible. And I’m in a hurry to do it. The only thing keeping me from fulfilling this is finances – a big hurdle these days, but one I’m determined to overcome.
Thanks for being here. And thanks for reading! Feel free to share please.
For our 50th anniversary, I wanted to gather the story of our life — the temples, the moves, the miracles, the losses, the laughter, and the quiet ways we kept choosing each other through every season. This isn’t just a timeline; it’s the map of a marriage built across states, decades, and faith. It’s a love story shaped by resilience, devotion, and the kind of companionship that grows deeper with every storm weathered and every sunrise shared.
If you’d like to read the full story, it’s below — a celebration of fifty years of us.
(A letter for my husband — August 21, 2026)
My love,
Fifty years. Half a century of us — of choosing each other, holding each other, building and rebuilding a life across states, temples, heartbreaks, miracles, and every kind of weather a marriage can walk through. When I look back, I don’t just see the years. I see you.
I see the young man I met at Signetics in Orem — the one every woman flirted with, the one who somehow became my friend in the middle of my own storms. I had Corey and Tracy, you had Alex and Ben, and both of us were trying to survive marriages that were already breaking. We didn’t plan a life together. We simply kept showing up for each other until life itself nudged us into the same direction.
And then came that Christmas of 1975 — the layoff, the eviction, the panic. You found me a place in Salt Lake City, found work nearby, and without knowing it, you set the first stone of our shared foundation. We didn’t fall in love in a moment. We built love out of survival, loyalty, and the way you refused to let me face anything alone.
🌿 The Early Years — Loss, Courage, and Holding On
We moved on January 1, 1976, carrying more hope than belongings. Then came the devastation no parent should ever face — losing Tracy. Losing everything we owned. Losing the Cougar. And yet, even in that grief, we stayed side by side.
Mama’s house. The funeral. Corey kidnapped the night of the viewing. Our first apartment. Our first purchase together — that king‑sized waterbed, our first big purchase on time, and even now, with a mattress we still sleep on. Even then, we were learning how to be a team.
Southern California beaches gave us rest. Quiet days, lazy waves, long talks, always with music to soothe us. You missed your boys. I missed Corey and Tracy. We were two people grieving separately, but healing together.
Then came the loss of our baby boy at five months. Another heartbreak. Another moment where we could have fallen apart — but didn’t.
💍 The Day We Chose Forever
My divorce finalized in August. We married on August 21, 1976, in Las Vegas at the tiny white “Chapel of Eternal Love.” We dressed in a gas station bathroom — me in a long white polyester dress with a white embroidered collar. We couldn’t afford a room, so we celebrated at Denny’s in the middle of the night. Then we drove home, closer to each other than two people have ever been.
That night wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t grand. But it was ours, and it was perfect. We made it OUR chapel of eternal love. From that day, I never felt otherwise, that our love is eternal.
Family time camping.
🏡 Becoming a Family
Corey came home after nine months missing. Alex and Ben came home a few days later. Oh, we were so very happy! We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving together. Fantasia was our first movie as a family. You brought me flowers every day for years. We were complete — or as complete as life allowed.
Varian. Church every Sunday. Sarah’s birth. No bucket seats — always cheek to cheek.
Washington. Boeing. Rachael’s birth. Acreage, camping, canning, goats, pigs, rabbits, homeschooling. A whole world built from scratch. We were so much in love, so thankful for each other. Even 20 years later, we couldn’t wait to hold each other tight every night.
Hawaii Temple
✨ Sacred Places, Sacred Promises
Our sealing in the Hawaii Temple — ten days in paradise, one on Maui. Sushi for the first time. Pearl Harbor. BYU–Hawaii. The Polynesian Cultural Center. Driving all over Oahu with joy in our bones. Stargazing into the brilliantly clear night sky, thanking our Father for our many blessings.
Mt. Haleakalā — the highest volcanic mountain in the islands. The young doctor and his pregnant wife who joined us. My altitude sickness. Your shoulder injury. The doctor treating you on the beach the next day. Even in the strangest moments, we were blessed.
🌱 The Middle Years — Work, Service, and Hard Lessons
School. Degrees. Fostering. Political life. Exhaustion. Parenting styles clashing. Kids running in opposite directions. Painful years. Both girls pregnant. The kind of heartbreak that ages a person.
Then, Penryn Park — caretakers. Isolation. Peace. Healing. Unity. The earth itself seemed to hold us together.
🌾 The Later Years — Dreams, Realizations, and Grace
Hawkins, East Texas — the dream fulfilled, then sickness, like a dark shadow, creeping in, once again. The slow painful realization that some dreams arrive later than we hoped. But even then, we stayed side by side.
Now we plan the conclusion gently. We take things slower. We prepare for one last move — to be near family. To settle all things. To finish our story the same way we began it: together.
💛 What I Celebrate Today
I celebrate your strength. I celebrate your devotion. I celebrate the way you have carried burdens no one else sees. I celebrate the way you have loved me through sickness, exhaustion, and every season of life. I celebrate the way you have shown up — again and again — even when life was unfair.
I celebrate us.
Fifty years of temples. Fifty years of moves. Fifty years of children, losses, miracles, and memories. Fifty years of choosing each other.
My love, we have lived a life that could fill volumes. And through every chapter — the beautiful ones, the painful ones, the ones we barely survived — you have been my partner, my protector, my companion, my home.
Happy 50th Anniversary.
I love you more now than I did on the night we stood in that tiny white chapel.
And I will love you still in every chapter that remains.
✨ Gentle Closing Blessing for the Anniversary Letter
May the years ahead be lighter than the ones behind us. May peace settle into the corners of our days, and may kindness be the language we speak to one another.
May we walk slowly, hand in hand, grateful for the chapters we’ve lived and tender with the ones still unfolding.
May God hold us close, heal what has been heavy, and bless the rest of our journey with gentleness, warmth, and quiet joy.
And may love — the steady, enduring kind — continue to be the thread that ties us together in every step we take from here.
What’s a quote that perfectly describes your outlook on life? ——————————-
”Light is not something you chase. It’s something you carry. My life is a slow, steady unfolding — and the light grows as I go.”
Here’s how I see my inner light, given to me as a gift from my Heavenly parents: It isn’t a spotlight demanding attention. It’s a lantern — quiet, steady, and deeply personal. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t rush. It simply glows, even on the days when I feel dim or uncertain. And the more I honor it, the brighter it becomes.
Some people think inner light is something you earn. But I know better.
It’s something I carry — through fog‑days, best‑days, ancestry, creativity, faith, and the soft unfolding of this life of mine.
🌟 What Inner Light Really Is
Inner light is the part of you that stays steady even when everything else shifts. It’s not confidence. It’s not perfection. It’s not productivity. It’s presence.
Quiet strength — the ability to keep moving gently, even when life feels heavy.
Soul clarity — the sense that something inside you knows the way, even when your mind doesn’t.
Creative truth — the spark that guides your writing, your journals, your heritage work.
Faithful resilience — the belief that God meets you in the soft places, not just the strong ones.
Ancestral glow — the way your roots, in my case, my Acadian roots, feel like a lantern handed down through generations.
Inner light is not loud. It’s loyal.
🌙 How Inner Light Shows Up in Real Life
It shows up when you write one honest sentence on a fibro fog‑day. It shows up when you choose gentleness over pressure. It shows up when you create something small but sincere. It shows up when you trust your own rhythm instead of forcing someone else’s.
My inner light is woven into my Pages Alight brand — the soft watercolor motifs, the candles, the feathers, the glowing edges of the planner spreads. It’s in my voice, my heritage projects, my night‑owl creativity, my faith‑friendly tone.
It’s the thread that ties everything together.
🕊️ Inner Light as a Spiritual Companion
Your inner light is not just emotional or creative — it’s spiritual. It’s the quiet assurance that you are guided, held, and seen. It’s the whisper that says:
You don’t have to shine for the world. You only have to shine from the truth inside you.
This is why my work resonates with overwhelmed readers. I don’t teach them to chase clarity. I try to teach them to trust the glow they already carry.
✨ A Gentle Invitation
If you’ve been doubting your brightness lately, let this settle softly in your heart:
Your inner light is not fragile. It’s faithful.
It stays with you through every season. It grows with every act of creativity. It strengthens with every moment of honesty. It brightens every time you choose presence over perfection.
You don’t have to force it. You only have to honor it.
Your inner light is already shining — quietly, beautifully, and right on time.
There are moments in history — and in our own lives — when hope feels like a small flame held against a vast, uncertain world. This story was inspired by an AI‑created illustration of a young Acadian girl standing on a twilight cliff, lantern in hand, watching the sea with quiet strength.
Her image stirred something ancient and familiar: the resilience of Acadian families, the way faith becomes a compass, and how light — even a single lantern — can guide someone home.
Below is the story that grew from that image, written in the spirit of remembrance, gentleness, and the enduring Acadian heart.
On a personal note: Next week, on the 23rd, my youngest daughter celebrates her birthday. I wanted to do something meaningful for her — something created from the heart — and though money is tight, love never is. So I chose to write this story and dedicate it to her.
Rachael’s love for her dad has always been sweet and uniquely her own. She carries a deep appreciation and respect for him that has blessed our family for decades, and I treasure that about her.
In celebration of her 47th year of life, I dedicate this story to our beautiful daughter, Rachael Lopez.
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart. You are a light all your own.
The Lantern of Beausoleil
The wind carried the scent of salt and pine as Élodie Broussard stood on the cliff’s edge, her shawl fluttering like a crimson wing. Below her, the sea breathed in slow rhythm, its waves whispering against the rocks as if remembering every voyage that had ever crossed its surface. The lantern in her hand glowed softly, a fragile sun against the deepening dusk.
She had come here every evening since her father’s ship failed to return. The villagers said the sea had claimed him, as it had claimed so many Acadian souls before — but Élodie refused to believe that the ocean could swallow faith whole.
The Acadian flag beside her snapped in the wind, its golden star catching the last light of the setting sun. That star, her mother had told her, was the Stella Maris — the Star of the Sea — guiding those who wandered far from home.
Tonight, Élodie whispered to it. “Guide him back to me.”
🌾 The Village Below
Down the slope, the village of Saint‑Pierre glowed with lamplight. Smoke curled from chimneys, and the church bell tolled softly, calling the faithful to evening prayer. The sound drifted upward, mingling with the sigh of the waves.
Élodie’s mother, Cécile, waited by the chapel door, her hands folded around a rosary worn smooth by years of prayer. She had stopped asking Élodie to come down before dark. The girl’s vigil had become a kind of sacred ritual — one that neither mother nor priest dared interrupt.
“Let her stand,” Father Armand had said once. “Faith sometimes needs wind and silence more than words.”
And so Élodie stood, each night, lantern raised like a promise.
🌊 The Memory of Departure
She remembered the morning her father left — the harbor alive with gulls and laughter, the ship’s sails swelling like the hearts of those who believed in new beginnings. He had kissed her forehead and said, “Keep the light burning, ma petite. The sea always finds its way home.”
She had laughed then, not knowing how heavy those words would become.
When the storm came weeks later, it tore through the coast with a fury that felt biblical. The villagers prayed, the mothers wept, and the sea roared as if answering every plea with thunder.
In the days that followed, wreckage washed ashore — planks, ropes, a single boot. But no bodies. No names.
Élodie refused to let the lantern go dark.
🌟 The Stranger at Dusk
On the seventh night after the storm, as the sun melted into the horizon, Élodie saw a flicker of light far out at sea — faint, uncertain, but real.
Her breath caught.
It wasn’t lightning. It wasn’t a star. It was a lantern, bobbing on the waves.
She ran down the cliff path, her skirts gathering dew and bramble. The villagers saw her and followed, their own lanterns swinging like fireflies.
By the time they reached the shore, the tide had carried in a small boat — battered, half‑broken, but alive. Inside lay a man, his hair silvered by salt, his hands clutching a wooden cross.
Her father.
🕯️ The Return
He was weak, but smiling. “Your light,” he whispered, “I saw it through the storm.”
The villagers lifted him gently, carrying him toward the chapel. Élodie walked beside him, lantern still burning.
That night, the church glowed brighter than it ever had. The priest said it was a miracle. The fishermen said it was luck. Élodie said nothing — she only watched the flame dance inside the glass, steady and golden.
Her father’s ship had been lost, but his faith had not.
🌠 The Legacy of Light
Years later, when Élodie herself became a mother, she told her children the story of the lantern — how it had guided a soul home through darkness.
She taught them that hope was not a thing to be shouted into the wind, but held quietly, like a flame cupped in trembling hands.
And when she grew old, she passed the lantern to her daughter, Marie, saying, “Keep it burning. Not for me, but for anyone who needs to find their way.”
Marie carried it to the same cliff, where the Acadian flag still waved against the twilight. The sea below was calm, the village lights steady.
She lifted the lantern high, and for a moment, the world seemed to pause — as if heaven itself leaned closer to listen.
🌅 Epilogue: The Star and the Sea
Long after Élodie’s time, travelers who visited Saint‑Pierre spoke of a light that could be seen from miles away — a single lantern glowing on the cliff at dusk.
Some said it was a trick of the sun. Others said it was the spirit of a girl who refused to let hope drown.
But the elders knew better.
They said the lantern was the heart of Acadia itself — a reminder that even when the world scatters its people like seeds across continents, the light of home still burns.
And if you stand on that cliff at twilight, you might hear the whisper of waves saying her name.
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