Nancy Parker Brummett

Author Writer Speaker

Salon Sagas

by 14 Comments

I had my first manicure in a nail salon when I was in my late fifties. I only went then because my two little granddaughters who were visiting one summer wanted to go. When the woman who answered the phone said she would give the girls a “free flower” I thought that was very kind and expected them to come home with a long-stemmed rose or a carnation but no, it was a daisy painted on each small thumbnail.

That was over 20 years ago, but since then I’ve become a semi-regular client at several different nail salons. You may think that the best “people watching” may be found at airports, malls, or ER waiting rooms, but I assure you, the clientele at nail salons can be most bemusing and amusing.

People become very loyal to their nail technicians, and I’ve followed my favorite to three different salons as his job changed, but I’ve noticed many similarities in terms of clientele at the different locations. It always warms my heart to see a faithful daughter or caregiver bringing in an older woman to get a manicure or, even more rejuvenating, a pedicure for her ailing feet and hard-to-cut toenails. I also like seeing men getting pedicures to make their wives happy!

But those heartwarming observations pale next to some of the situations I’ve observed. Once a fortyish business woman was on her phone the entire time she was getting her pedicure. She also had her laptop open on her lap and was conducting business as if she were seated behind a mahogany desk in a high-rise office building. I actually overheard her offering a job to someone. They were negotiating salary, vacation time, job title, etc., and everyone in the salon could follow along with each discussion point. In the end the fellow on the other end of the phone evidently said he’d talk to his wife and let her know, so we were all left wondering if he took the job. It’s been a while since I was in the corporate world, but is this the new business etiquette? I hope not.

Keeping up with the life events of manicure seekers is entertaining as well. You overhear that someone wants bright orange because they are headed to Mexico on vacation, or you witness a giggly bridal party coming in to get their nails done for the wedding. Recently two little girls proudly held out their hands to show me the ice blue polish they got because they were to be flower girls in their aunt’s upcoming wedding.

Much of life can be witnessed in a nail salon, and seeing those two little girls reminded me of two others many years ago. I guess salon sagas can be sentimental, too.

From a Patriot

by 28 Comments

I was born a patriot and I will die a patriot. Patriot is not a derogatory label to me. It’s one I wear proudly. The official definition is “one who loves, supports, and defends one’s country.” Yep, that’s me. I’m a patriot.

I knew I was a patriot when I stood to say the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school, my hand over my heart pressing against the starchy fabric of the first-day-of-school plaid dress I wore. I knew I was a patriot when my FBI-agent dad punctuated every family vacation with photos of my sisters and me huddled around the base of a flagpole at whatever historical site we were visiting. He would go across the street in order to capture the entire flagpole, so in every photo we are miniature-sized patriots.

I knew I was a patriot when I sent my first husband off to Vietnam, so proud of his service and blissfully unaware of any consequences to come. My toddler son and I spent that time near my parents and his, and my dad entered me into a local essay contest on “Why I’m Proud to Be an American.” I won. The article in the local paper confirmed what I knew. I’m a patriot.

In 78 years there have been so many times my eyes have filled with tears over just the thought of a country as brave and beautiful as the one we are blessed to call home. Parades and fireworks shows attended, Old Glory waving in front of every home I’ve lived in, red-white-and-blue decorations, American flag cakes—all evidence that could be used against me if I’m ever put on trial for being a patriot.

Recently I visited our nation’s capital with a group from our church. Walking the streets of D.C. I couldn’t be prouder of how beautiful and safe the city is again. Monuments restored and gleaming, gardens in full bloom, fountains flowing that haven’t worked in decades, and an overall spirit of celebration and gratitude. As a patriot, I’m not afraid to give credit where credit is due for this restoration of what is arguably the most awe-inspiring capital city in the world. Thank you, Mr. President.

Today’s newsletter from another patriot, Gary Bauer, contained a quote from President Ronald Reagan: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

I’m in my sunset years. I pray I won’t see the total demise of our country before I die, but there are powerful forces at work to distort and destroy all that’s good about our republic—the one Benjamin Franklin questioned whether we would be able to keep. Those who strive to magnify our mistakes and failings and demonize our successes and sacrifices would like nothing better than to snuff out the flame of freedom. As one of our grandsons recently asked, “If they hate America so much, why don’t they just leave?” If only.

So if I am put on trial and convicted for being a patriot, so be it. The truth of the Gospel assures me that my true citizenship is in heaven, and my primary allegiance to Jesus Christ insures my future there. But please, Lord, if it be Your will, do not remove Your hand from this country You have protected for so long.

Happy 250th Birthday to our amazing country! And God bless America.

It’s Yardening Time!

by 7 Comments

(Repeat of a “fan favorite” from 2008. Well, my husband likes it.)

By this time of year almost everyone is into gardening. Or is what you do really “yardening” instead? There’s a difference, you know.

First, the wardrobe differs drastically. Gardeners wear floppy straw hats, sturdy pants with big pockets and loops for hanging tools, and clogs. Yardeners work in the yard wearing a hat from Disney World, cut-off blue jeans, and the sneakers they bought the year they graduated from high school.

Then there are the tools themselves. Gardeners have tools with matching handles. Each tool has a special function—and a special spot in the wooden gardener’s bench at the end of the day. Yardeners are more likely to be out digging with an old serving spoon from the kitchen. They just toss it in the kids’ sandbox once they have the petunias in the ground.

Gardeners have a master calendar for all their gardening tasks, such as dividing seedlings, rotating rose bushes, whatever it is Martha Stewart finds to fill up her calendar even in the dead of winter. They wouldn’t even dream of pulling weeds unless it was on the schedule.

Yardeners, on the other hand, may lapse into their yardening tasks quite spontaneously. I once talked to a freelance artist who explained she had missed her deadline because she went out to get the mail and noticed a few weeds growing by the mailbox. Naturally, she stopped to pull them up, and four hours later she was still out in the yard pulling weeds. I understood completely. That’s yardening at its best.

If you see people strolling their grounds, or setting up tents for a garden party, they are probably gardeners. Yardeners are more likely to be seen standing in their front yards on a Saturday morning drinking coffee, contemplating brown spots, and staring down the dandelions. The only grounds on their minds are the ones in the bottom of the coffee mug.

Of course gardeners don’t have to deal with dandelions because, you guessed it—they don’t have any. The anti-weed substance spread with their lawn fertilizer takes care of them. Yardeners, on the other hand, wield little spray bottles of environmentally friendly “Dandelion DOA,” and pop each stubborn dandelion root up with an old screwdriver. (The screwdriver conveniently fits in the back pocket of the cut-off jeans and is equally useful for setting the choke on the lawn mower.)

The aesthetic results differ, too. Gardeners carefully coordinate the shades of green they combine in any given area of the landscape, and are careful to plant flowers which bloom sequentially, clustered in color groups of cool or hot tones. Yardeners, however, are happy whenever anything turns green, and they’ve been known to water weeds for weeks before realizing they weren’t zinnias.

Gardener or yardener? Whichever you are, it’s time to get out there. And remember, those dandelions grow while you sleep.

Are You Feeling Egg-centric?

by 10 Comments

Memories of Easters past always include fond recollections of the annual egg dying experience. We remember watching our mom spreading out yesterday’s newspaper on the kitchen table and getting out the egg dying kit from the grocery store. Today’s kits have fancy add-ons like stickers and such, but we just recall the package of tablets in different colors, the one copper wire egg dipper we took turns with, the wax crayon for writing our names on the eggs we chose, and the box with the punch-out holes for displaying our finished designs.

For many of us it was the first time we inhaled the pungent smell of vinegar as we watched intently for the different colored tablets to dissolve in the cups of hot water. It didn’t take long to discover, once the white hard-boiled eggs had cooled enough to be carefully dipped in the dye, that the blue, green and purple dyes would work their magic first while the orange and yellow dyes took much longer. And red always turned out pink, right?

I’m glad I also have memories of dying Easter eggs with my boys and with several of our grandchildren over the years. Inevitably some child would turn over a cup of dye and it would flow over the newspaper on to the floor, someone would drop an egg and crack it, or a grandchild would complain that a sibling was hogging the best colors, the dipper, or the crayon. But when all was said and done and the mess was cleaned up, we had a beautiful array of colored eggs nestled in fake green grass in a basket—all ready for an Easter morning egg hunt. There might have even been some slightly multi-colored egg salad to enjoy after Easter in the days before we knew about salmonella!

Whereas kids can have just as much fun hunting for plastic eggs as real ones, especially if there’s a piece of candy or other surprise inside each one, much fancier eggs from different cultures have been a part of the art world for centuries and are often displayed under glass in golden egg cups in museums. Whether it’s the delicately painted Ukrainian pysanky egg or the jewel-encrusted Faberge one, they are truly works of art.

The eggs displayed on my coffee table each Easter are the multi-colored marble ones I collected on travels in Germany and Italy in the early seventies. But I’m thinking this year I may just toss one of those egg dying kits in my grocery basket and have an egg-stravagant dying experience again. While I’m waiting for the fizzy tablets to reach their potential, I’ll turn in my Bible to Isaiah 43:19 and be reminded of God’s promise: See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? For the symbolism of the Easter egg, of any variety, should not be missed even by the youngest of us. New life, new birth, the promise of spring and of resurrection. That’s Easter in an egg shell. So add some egg-centric fun to your celebration this year as you focus on the real reason we rejoice–the resurrection of our living Savior. Happy Easter!

For the Love of Hearts

by 8 Comments

TM Willow Tree

My friend Andrea loves hearts. You may be thinking, “Well, don’t we all?” but you don’t understand. The majority of Andrea’s home motif is heart décor. Heart-shaped placemats and throw rugs, heart candleholders, heart tree ornaments at Christmas, heart wreaths and wall hangings, all abound in the Colorado Rockies home she shares with her husband—who, when he proposed years ago, presented her with a heart-shaped diamond! The girl loves hearts.

My younger sister Mary was born on Valentine’s Day. Each year my mom would bring out her heart-shaped cake pans to make a birthday cake for Mary, usually chocolate with Mom’s memorable, fluffy white Seven-Minute Frosting. If Mary resents having to share her birthday with Valentine’s Day she never says so. She’s very lovable and loving so it just works.

This time of year we see hearts wherever we go. On T-shirts and hoodies, on paper plates and napkins, in the candy aisle at the grocery store and on a lot of the advertising in newspapers and online. We all probably remember folding red construction paper to cut out hearts to paste on a shoebox for collecting valentines, or for making our own valentines out of red hearts and doilies.

But hearts aren’t just for Valentine’s Day. Google informed me that the heart icon is the most popular Emoji by far, which is not surprising given that millions of people use it to express their agreement, affection, maybe even love for, someone’s Facebook or Instagram post. And what if we could collect every type of heart Emoji used in texts since that form of communication emerged? We would need many heart-shaped silos to contain them all.

Where did our love for hearts begin? The earliest designs go back centuries and many were crude representations of the anatomical heart, of which today’s heart icon has only the slightest resemblance. A simplified version appeared on Victorian-era valentines and now the heart symbol signifies love of all kinds—as well as heart-healthy choices on a menu!

So do we love the heart symbol, or the sentiment it represents? Both, for sure. As we see hearts this year we may think of romantic love, the love of a parent for a child, one friend’s love for another, or even our love of pets.

And then there’s the strongest love of all: God’s love for us which is expressed through His grace, mercy, and forgiveness. I Corinthians 13:13 says, And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. And so we cherish the love He extends to all human hearts and thank Him for comforting the broken-hearted.

Wishing you and those you love a heartfelt Valentine’s Day this year!

Gentle and Lowly

by 20 Comments

Some books land in your lap at just the right time. That’s what happened when I read Gentle and Lowly, The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, by Dane Ortlund.[i] My granddaughter recommended the book, but it wasn’t until it was offered by our women’s ministry at church last fall that I signed up to read and discuss it.

You know a book was worth the read when it lingers with you long after you close the cover for the last time. So it was with Gentle and Lowly. Ortlund takes the verse in Matthew 11:29 where Jesus says, “I am gentle and lowly at heart,” and makes it the basis of a whole book drawing the reader closer to the heart of the Savior. He points out that within all four gospel accounts of the life of Jesus this is the only place where Jesus describes the condition of His heart. From those seven words come a wealth of encouragement and love for those who trust in Him.

Of course, the book includes references to many other relevant Scripture verses and also presents quotes from some of the most articulate and insightful writers of the past: men like Thomas Goodwin, John Bunyan and Charles Spurgeon. I probably won’t ever get around to reading their collected works, but I’m grateful for the exposure I got to their deep theological understanding in Gentle and Lowly.

As we came in to the Christmas season I realized so many of the words in the old familiar carols had more meaning because of Ortlund’s book. The story of Christmas is the story of a gentle, helpless baby being born in a lowly manger on a mission to save us all.  In “O Little Town of Bethlehem” we sang, “No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.” How blessed are those who are meek enough to welcome Him in to their hearts.

The strains of “O Holy Night” brought more passages from the book to mind. “His law is love and His gospel is peace.” Yes, Lord, I want to fall on my knees before You. Your love is never-ending. You long to pour out Your love for us.  And You are forever the desperately needed Prince of Peace.

“First Moment in Heaven,” (c) Christian Photoshops

What will I bring in to the new year from this focus on the heart of Jesus? That He is neither surprised nor repelled by my sin, but that when I sin His heart pours out not condemnation, because that score has been settled, but understanding, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.

And in those times in 2026 when I might feel unworthy, invisible, washed up, and useless, His heart will reveal how He sees me—as a beautiful daughter of the King, a soul with a reservation in heaven, and a friend of His. He won’t let me disparage or discount one of His friends, not for a second.

Then there’s the suffering. We all pray the new year will be void of the kind of pain we’ve endured in the past, but we don’t know. What we can be sure of is that Jesus, because of His sacrifice for us, is acquainted with our pain, relates to our suffering, and will be with us in the middle of it to hold us close to His heart and get us through it.

I realize this is heavier than most of my posts, but just as I need to clean off my desk before I can work productively, I needed to share what was on my heart before writing anything else. Needless to say, I recommend Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund. The cover is beautiful! The chapters are short enough to add one or two to your daily devotions, and the truth you learn about the heart of Jesus will stay with you always.

Happy New Year!

[i] Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2020).

 

Seek the Sun

by 17 Comments

If you ever long for more sunshine in your life, follow a cat around. These feline finders never miss the chance to bask in a burst of sunlight, and all of us will need to do that more as the days grow shorter and the sun sets earlier this winter.

This has been a year of valleys and peaks for our family. If you’re a regular reader and you’re just now realizing you haven’t heard from me for a while, it’s because the valleys seem to have drained my creativity so my writing and my cooking, which l came to understand is also a creative endeavor, have suffered. And yet we’ve also had a joyful wedding, a new baby born, and an engagement this year! In all of it, we know God is good, now and forever, and that we are richly blessed.

But like a plant turning toward the sun to soak up as much as it can so it can grow and bloom as designed, we can’t grow if we just sit in the dark. That’s no way to thrive. Those of us who are blessed with sound mental health (well, most of the time) realize that grief is not a destination. It’s not a place to stay, but a place to travel through in time, incorporating the loss into who you will now be but not letting it define you completely. And as we travel, we look for the sun, the positive, the eternal hope that lifts our heads.

It takes discipline to turn away from the dark into the light. And it takes a full reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible passage I often turn to when I need to shift my perspective is Phil. 4:8—Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

The fact that you’re reading this means healing is happening. I’m especially grateful for Thanksgiving this year as the timing of the celebration is nothing less than perfect. As Chuck Swindoll wrote: Thanksgiving is a time of quiet reflection upon the past and an annual reminder that God has, again, been ever so faithful. The solid and simple things of life are brought into clear focus, so much so that everything else fades into insignificance.

So if you are feeling down this holiday season, seek the sun and seek the Son, Jesus Christ. Bask in all the blessings for which you are grateful. Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!

We Pledge Allegiance

by 16 Comments

Our culture is quick to slap labels on people. One of the most recent is “Christian Nationalist.” It is used by some as an insult, but as I look at the definition of each word I’m proud to say, “I guess that’s me!” I’m a follower of Jesus Christ and I am a patriotic American. So slap a label on me if you must. I’ll wear it proudly as I praise God for preserving our country against enemies domestic and foreign and celebrate Independence Day on July 4th!

Most of us can remember beginning each school day standing by our desks with our hands over our hearts and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. We stood a bit taller the first day of school in our plaid dresses and stiff jeans as we recited those well-revered words.

Patriots among us still watch for opportunities to stand and say the pledge, even as we sadly see those opportunities dwindle. First there was an effort to remove the words “under God” from the pledge, then fewer and fewer schools kept the reciting of the pledge as a part of each school day. Yet those words forever in our hearts still sound out every U.S. citizen’s allegiance to his or her country.

It’s said if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. What we need to remember, however, even in our later years, is that it makes a big difference for what we choose to stand. We need to choose our loyalties carefully, and then put our hearts and souls into defending those choices till the end of our days.

Our allegiance to our Lord God can co-exist quite convivially with our allegiance to our country. But we must never forget which allegiance is greater—which allegiance carries with it an eternal citizenship and the guarantee that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:6). That’s our loyalty and allegiance to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Granddaughters Fran and Amanda, now all grown up, with the cake they made!

Yes, it’s important for us to pledge allegiance to our country, and never take her freedoms and benefits for granted. But even more important is our allegiance to the God under whom our country was created. As a common slogan says, we “stand for the flag and kneel for the cross.” Our true allegiance, our undying loyalty once we are believers in Him and His Son Jesus Christ, must be always and only to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. To Him we pledge our allegiance. After all, our true citizenship is in heaven.

It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.

–George Washington

The Day After

by 16 Comments

(Readers, if you weren’t able to open and read my April post, “Sunrise Hope at Easter,” due to a glitch in the system of the host provider, you may read it now on my website.)

As many of you read in April, I have not been able to write very much recently due to the loss of our 9-month-old great-granddaughter from complications of the flu in February. But when I heard the writing prompt for a writer’s workshop sponsored by Academy Christian Church, my imagination soared. I thought it might just be the opportunity I needed to get the creative juices flowing again. I was right.

What was the prompt? To choose a person in the Bible who had a personal encounter with Jesus and write about what they did the day after. Attendees were provided with a list of 30 such encounters, but we were free to choose anyone we wanted. I chose the woman at the well from John 4:1-45.

This woman is unnamed, so I named her Marta. I imagined her returning to the house she shared with a man not her husband, experiencing a sleepless night remembering the life-changing things the Messiah had said to her, a sinful Samaritan woman, and strategizing how she would leave her life of sin. The next morning, she rises before dawn and begins to prepare one last meal for this man I named Jamal when she realizes she left her water jug at the well. She goes to retrieve it and returns to find he is awake. She calmly explains why she can no longer live with him; he explodes and leaves.

That is a short summary of the three pages I wrote, but I like the ending another writer in the group imagined better. In her version of the story, the woman leaves, not knowing what will happen to her, but she encounters a group of people who tell her, “Join us on the road! We are going to follow Jesus!” Just imagine.

Another attendee wrote about the woman with the issue of bleeding in Mark 5:24-35 and Luke 8: 42-48. As you may recall she had suffered for over 12 years and, in desperation, worked her way through the crowd to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe and be miraculously healed. The day after? This writer imagined she wakes realizing that she doesn’t have to deal with the bloody rags that have been the bane of her existence for so long. She is clean. She tells her caregiver that she has the energy to go fetch the water at the well herself, where her amazed friends are so happy to see her. Hearing that a woman she knows is ill, she takes water to her, too, so thrilled that she can now minister to others again because her Lord ministered to her.

Other writers imagined what happened the day after to the man possessed by demons that Jesus transferred to the pigs (Mark 5:1-20), to the Centurion whose servant was healed from a distance (Matthew 8:5-13), or to Lazarus, who was raised from the dead (John 11:1-44). The writer speculating about Lazarus wondered, assuming he had been in the presence of God, if Lazarus was really that happy about being brought back to live on the earth again? Of course, his sisters Mary and Martha were thrilled and grateful that he was back, but was he? We can only imagine.

I’m grateful to the ladies of Academy Christian Church for welcoming me to their group with open arms, and grateful to discover that grief couldn’t permanently rob me of a gift the Lord graciously gave me so very long ago.

What about you? If you’ve had an encounter with Jesus, what did you do the next day? Who did you tell? How were you changed? I can only imagine.

Sunrise Hope at Easter

by 9 Comments

Dear Readers, you may realize I didn’t post anything in February and March. That’s because we lost our almost 10-month old great-granddaughter, Anna, to complications of the flu on Feb. 12. I haven’t been able to write much since, but when I can I will post more about sweet Anna. For now, this repeat message on hope at Easter seems appropriate for us…and I hope for you. God bless.

No wonder so many people love to attend Easter sunrise services. A sunrise represents hope, and so it is the perfect representation of the hope we find in the message of Easter.

Few events can be counted on to occur day after day, but the rising of the sun is one of them. Even on a cloudy day, when the heat and light of the sun may be minimized, we can still see that the sun did indeed rise once again!

And how grateful we are for the blessing of the sun in our lives. Without it, we would be in perpetual darkness. Without it, plant life on the earth, including the flowers and trees that bring us so much joy, would shrivel and die. All the beauty we look forward to this time of year when spring begins to bloom would cease to exist. In fact, all of life would eventually disappear from the earth, all because we lost the sun.

Our life on earth is marked by the number of sunrises and sunsets we experience, but do we really experience them? Do we appreciate the sun and the majesty of the Creation that allows it to shine day after day, or do we take it for granted? The first rays of a sunrise are subtle at best. Slowly the darkness begins to fade as the sun makes its way toward the horizon, but then as the giant orb of fire climbs up into view the entire sky changes color. The sunrise can look different each and every day, but because we can count on it to happen without fail, it’s a wonderful symbol for the hope we have in Jesus Christ—the hope that is an anchor for the soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:19).

It was a dark, bleak day when Jesus was crucified on the cross—the worst day His followers had ever known. And yet when the grieving women ran to the tomb early in the morning of the third day, after the sun had risen, they were greeted with the glorious news of the resurrection! Praise God we can be sure that those who believe in His Son will also know the glory of everlasting life. We can be even more certain of that than we are of the sunrise! For no matter what darkness our life holds, one day we will be bathed in the light of heaven forever.

The next time we are blessed to watch a sunrise, and especially on Easter morning, we should bask in the hope that it represents. It’s a hope that never fades, and never disappoints.