I mowed the lawn with a vengeance this morning. I mean an actual vengeance. Like, “How dare you sit there so smug and tall and defiantly bushy?!” I needed to have dominion over nature in some way, and the grass was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because here we are in […]
I jumped off a cliff the summer I was 16. It seemed like a good idea at the time… until I was hurtling toward the water below. Let me tell you, water isn’t always a great cushion. Flailing like Wiley E. Coyote trying to run on thin air, I tilted back just enough that the
We didn’t need words. We had chicken, fresh off the grill and perfectly juicy. We had corn on the cob, roasted garlic zucchini, and deep amber honey dripping off buttery biscuits. We had some gentle quiet at the end of a week of sweet chaos, with their family and ours all under one roof. And
We’re in a season of some pretty big change in our house. Our oldest is leaping from childhood into the strange new world of college classes, car insurance, and grown-up decisions and responsibilities. And for the first time in his ministry career, my husband is serving primarily adults instead of teens. He’s upgraded his goatee
The bigness of life has surprised me. When I was young I expected life to become simpler as I grew older. I thought my days would get easier because I would be more equipped to handle the things that would come along. What I didn’t understand then was the sheer size and complexity of the
It’s been a couple months since I’ve written anything here. I’ve been busy writing for my day job, but I’ve also just been choosing to use the time I have to be present with family and friends, some of whom are going through really difficult things. Nothing is harder than watching the sharp edges of
We have this little porcelain nativity scene. I’m not sure where we got it, but it’s been part of our Christmases forever. A few years ago someone gave us two angels that dwarf the other figurines, but my youngest always puts them right behind Mary and Joseph. Those towering angels make me think of the
I’ve got these red jar-style drinking glasses in my cupboard. I found them scattered on a dusty shelf in a chain store in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. They’re cheaply made, and the red flakes off if they’re anything but gently hand washed, but we love using them for holiday dinners. The harder clean-up
I was halfway through sweeping up the crumbled edges of leaves carried in by my kids’ feet when it hit me that gratitude can feel a lot like sadness. These are grateful days, with the light slanting golden and rust through changing trees and our hours full of the things that matter most. The grace
The leaves are stubbornly green. The calendar says October, but the weary heat is still spread thick, like someone forgot to pack up summer and put it away. It’s exhausting to wait while a season hangs on long after it was supposed to change. October holds echoes of a lot of loss for my family.