Worship

I recently wrote a poem for a dear friend who was returning to the U.K. for a few months to have a baby. As I was writing, though, I realized it was just as much for me… Lullaby The sky lays down its golden head On weary mountain height, And emerald fields in shameless spread […]

It’s a grey and wet day, the fifth day of rain this week. For long, dusty months we’ve been praying and watching the sky as our water tanks empty and the river runs low. So this is welcome. But the mud and fog look different than what we’ve gotten used to. When black clouds roll

“What did you eat for breakfast?”  My friend Gina looked quizzically at my mouth. We had arrived at church a little early, a rare occurrence, clean and combed and dressed in our best for our first Ukarumpa Sunday service.  The day before I had bought a bag of mints in town, which was my first

   It’s November. The leaves have changed, and so have our four walls. Our renters are moving into our house as I write this, and we sit snug and warm in the little apartment that will be our home until we move to Papua New Guinea in two months. Life looks different than it did

 I love flowers. I love the way they smell, the way they bloom – the silent unfurling of fragrance and color. Some of the best things in life happen slowly, quietly, with little fanfare. Like the way I fell in love with my husband over months of phone calls, long drives, and twilight walks. There

    It happened again. This time it was the tip of the stylus we use with our tablet. Tooth marks and a chunk missing and a guilty looking preschooler. She destroyed another just last week. And bit a hole in a pretzel bag, letting salt and crumbs pour all over the back seat of the

    I could feel it in my chest. The pounding of hands and hearts. The music flowing around us, a strong current pulling us to the throne of God. We were all together, held tight in this moment, connecting spirit to Spirit.     He was there, and we could feel him. And then it ended,

      My daughter is always finding four-leaf clovers. I mean all the time. She has an eye for it, so much that it’s almost commonplace. At least to us. Each time she comes tearing into the house with another, she’s wild with excitement. “Can you believe we have so many four-leaf clovers? We must have

    The book I’m reading, The Practice of the Presence of God, narrowly avoided being defenestrated this morning. (For those of you who aren’t English teachers or fans of Calvin and Hobbes, that means I nearly threw it out a window.) It’s a good book, full of truth and sage advice. But it makes me

    At the very end, her skin grew pale and thin, like the veil that separates here from There. Her eyes sparkled clear hazel. She saw things. Things that didn’t make sense to us, but she understood because she was already breaking loose and leaning soul into eternity. The afternoon they brought my mom home