Do you remember what you were doing around this time ten years ago? I do. It would have been the summer my daughter turned seventeen, and my boys would have been turning fifteen and twelve. At that point, I had been blogging about four years, and the world was a different place, the internet a different animal. Social media was a train gaining ...
“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get ...
Nine years ago, at the age of seventeen, I had brain surgery to remove a tumor the size of a golf ball. For months, sickness snuck up on me in the early morning hours and hung on until night fell and sleep took over. No matter who we spoke with or what we tried, there were no answers. Until a Tuesday evening MRI, which led to a Wednesday ...
It is boating season around my part of the country. Everyone is hitting any body of water they can find to cool off from the unrelenting summer heat. There is nothing quite like the feel of that cool mist off the water hitting your hot skin as you fly across it. While I don’t go boating often, I have been on all kinds of boats -- boats on a ...
Sometimes I forget. Sometimes in the midst of church life, I just do and forget the who. I forget the why and do not rest in His because. As I talk to people who have left the local church, I get it. It's easy to become disillusioned and frustrated, disconnected from unmet expectations, but regardless of the reason, my heart grieves. Scripture ...
When my family had lived in the Midwest for a year, and I was in a season of parenting three tiny humans, we attended a church full of beautifully kind and loving people. After some time, I finally began forming relationships with a few of the good folks there. One particular Sunday when my husband was out of town for work, I managed to navigate ...
My broody hen, Fluffina, was nearing the end of her devoted tenure squatting above a clutch of five eggs. She sat and sat and sat some more, and when the other hens tried to usurp the nest on which we’d enthroned her, she would not be moved. I checked on her obsessively, even though I knew I should let the process unfurl on its own accord, ...
Recently, our little country church did what we do best. We rallied around our grieving brothers and sisters. The visitation and funeral were held under our steeple, and it was our great privilege to set up chairs, bring food, wash dishes, play music, offer hugs, clear tables, set out Kleenex boxes, and pray. We have a lot of elderly folks in ...
Confession: I’m not a graceful runner. Even the word "run" might be a bit misleading. I move faster than when I’m walking, but the average poodle and/or enthusiastic toddler would have a good shot at outpacing me. However, when I start out on a run, I feel like an Olympian. I stand up straight and bend my elbows at just the right place. There’s ...
“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, ...
