I Hope This Takes Us to the River
My husband veers off onto some unpaved back road in a blind attempt to reach the banks of the Mississippi River. My youngest wants to dip her toes into it. “What are you doing?” I cry out. “I hope this takes us to the river,” he says as we wind deeper into marshy lands filled […]
Artful Coffee
We visit a little coffee shop in St. Charles called Picasso’s. You wait a while longer for artful coffee. It’s delicious. And like all truly artful things, it’s worth waiting for. If one might create artful coffee, might one make other things artful? I think about artful cleaning, artful marriage, artful speaking, artful dressing. I […]
I Love This Photo
It’s so bright as the thunder ceases that I just hold my phone over my head and snap whatever it can see. The storm ends, and the sun shines through. All that churning and terrible, grumbling darkness ends in a terrific display of light. That’s how it is inside me. This is how it’s always […]
What You Do Not Have to Give
I meet a new friend who explains what happened when God asked her to give what she didn’t have to give in a particular situation. She tells me how only then did God become her real source; she needed power and provision because God asked her to do something she wasn’t capable of in her […]
As You Want It to Be
Lately I’ve been thinking about the ways we bring life and joy to people and our circumstances. I am learning how to speak about people and circumstances and envision the very best. I want to envision the glory of what could be–even if it’s not quite there yet. It’s the same with teaching and parenting. […]
Hush
I love this word today. I love how it sounds. Hush. I’m listening to a speaker read from Mark 4:39 when Jesus tells the raging sea to “hush.” The passage reads, “And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Hush, be still.’ And the wind died down and it became […]
Your Face
I’ve been taking time to appreciate the beauty of faces today. Your face amazes me. It’s so beautiful that I can’t believe it. Each one unique, each one so precious. This morning my youngest comes very close to my face as she recounts a story. She holds my face in her hands. I examine her […]
“A Life Spacious Enough”
Today my friend shares a quote about the life of C.S. Lewis by Oxford graduate student Matthew Lee Anderson (who lived in Lewis’s home). Anderson writes, “the genius of Lewis emerged in part because he had a life spacious enough for profound thoughts to fill it.” A life spacious enough. . . I love thinking […]
She Made Me Do It. I Loved It.
I spent many days of parenting doing what I absolutely did not want to do. My children wanted me to play with them, and I couldn’t remember how. Polly Pockets became the bane of my existence. Pushing children on swings became my personal definition of boredom. Hide-n-seek felt like cruel punishment. However, when I really […]
“Abandoned to His Care”
This morning, I hear a speaker talk about the ways he’s learned to completely abandon himself to the care of the Lord. The phrase he repeats to us is this: That we might live abandoned to His care. I write in my journal that I want to abandon myself to His care. The verb means to […]