A few minutes before nine Saturday morning. I straighten my apron and scan the table.

Two tubs of butter? Three bottles of maple syrup? A 10-cup coffee pot? Yup, all set.

I turn over the sign on the front door: “Barb’s Best Ever Waffles, Open.” Soon, folks will be arriving for an all-you-can-eat breakfast.

A waitress at a waffle house, I’m not. But each Saturday morning I welcome friends, family and neighbors into my kitchen for coffee, conversation and all the crispy, buttery waffles they can eat.

Gloria was eighty-seven and the matriarch of a large African-American family.

She lived in a tiny house in a wooded area near a very busy highway. She had raised her family in this beautifully kept wooden structure, which had obviously been loved and tended to carefully. Over many years she had educated her children, all of whom had gone to college.

Family life had been filled with strong faith, church attendance, choir practice, and discipline. You could say this was a “faith-filled family.”

We were looking for a place to buy picnic makings.

My husband, John, and I were driving through the countryside in northern France. We hadn’t passed even a village since noon.

At last we spotted a walled town high on a hilltop. Its name, a sign told us as we followed a steep road up to a formidable stone gateway, was Langres.

We found a place to park. We bought endives and olives in one store, cheese in another and a baguette. We ate our picnic on a bench against the medieval wall that still enclosed the town.

First time I ever saw Guideposts magazine was in my dad’s chapel in occupied Japan.

He was an Army chaplain and was always looking out for inspirational material for our soldiers. I followed in the family footsteps and became an Army chaplain myself, just in time to be deployed to Vietnam. You can bet I made sure there was helpful, inspiring literature from GUIDEPOSTS for my men.

Julee was touring, so it fell to me to rush home and give Sally and Marty their midday walk, feed them lunch while I ate mine and checked out the headlines on CNN.

That day, April 19, 1995, I stared in disbelief at the images of devastation and carnage at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City and tried to make sense of this act of mass murder.

Healthy Cook Rebecca Katz is a big proponent of saying grace before a meal. She says in addition to connecting with your faith, it actually helps you digest food in a heathy way. Both body and soul are nourished.

Graces are said all over the world. Here are a few you might want to take to your family table.

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When the earthquake in Haiti happened, it was front page news.

When celebrities lined up for a fundraiser, it remained our focus.

But as the days pass, stories of the aftermath get smaller, get relegated to the end of broadcasts or deeper into magazines and newspapers.

The huge problems in Haiti unfortunately won’t go away any time soon. Among the current crises: starvation, orphaned children, displacement, grossly inadequate medical care, rising cases of tuberculosis. Rebuilding is estimated to cost $13 billion.

The early days of my adult faith were happy and uncomplicated.

Noticing God in those days took little effort. Indeed, it was difficult not to notice God’s meddling in my life. I saw God everywhere. I spoke of God all the time. I bored and alarmed others with my preoccupation with matters of the spirit.

I couldn’t see without my glasses, so when I reached into my purse to swap my prescription sunglasses out for my regular glasses and found the case empty, my mouth went dry.

My husband, Peter, and I had been all over doing errands. They could be anywhere! We searched the van first with no luck. “Maybe they dropped out of the case at that last store?” I said. My good sport of a husband spun the wheel into a U-turn.

Every Jewish cook his or her own recipe for this traditional Passover dish, but this one comes from Grandma Rita.

Ingredients