Can You Guess?
I’m watching this plant every day now. Can you guess what it will bloom into? Answer: This one will blossom as a glorious sunflower. I want to harvest the seeds at the end of the summer. What about these? These are my absolute favorite (don’t tell the Sunflower). Answer: Raspberries! I will make more […]
Drawn to a Simple Landscape
We run in the field across the street and through the woods as the sun begins to set. I take a camera because that particular evening light always illuminates something I either haven’t seen before or something I’ve seen before but never in that way. I observe the setting sun’s light on the tips of […]
Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket
I ask my oldest daughter why she’s putting all her library raffle tickets in only one prize box. Our public library gives children a raffle ticket for every 100 pages they read, and they can put a ticket in one of dozens of boxes to win prizes. You can choose weekly prizes or put a […]
The Prayer Before the Prayer
This morning in church, it occurs to me that I ought to ask God to make my heart ask for the right things. My stubborn heart often refuses to cooperate, and it likes to plan a course and invent dreams that aren’t His. So all my praying in a certain direction is just that: my […]
Just Something About It
I eat peas fresh from the pod as I stand in our little garden. There’s just something about doing this that brings me right into joy. You know my love of pea plants. I pop open the pod, and I gobble down the sweet peas. I like keeping track of the simplest of pleasures. ________________________Did […]
By the Time I Finished, I Came Out New
This morning, I read a post by Judy Douglass on going low. It’s about motherhood, but it’s also about choosing the “lowest place” in all things. Judy writes about what it means to “go low”: you go last; you give up your plans to defer to others; you sacrifice sleep; you forfeit your own time. […]
Led, Not Driven
Today I remember to calm down with all my driven tendencies to do more, write more, plan more, build a better platform, etc. etc. etc. I read twitter, and I feel bad about all the ways I’m not being influential or important. I start to feel driven again. Driven folks feel forced to succeed, […]
A Special Thing a Day
As the summer rolls on, some days feel very long. I find that if we have one special thing–a simple thing–the day changes somehow. It doesn’t have to be a long, elaborate thing. It doesn’t even have to cost anything. Today, we gave ourselves French manicures and made a peach popover. That was it. That […]
My Biggest Writing (and Life) Struggle: Point of View
All week, I revise a novel’s point of view. It’s hard! The narrator tells the story through the lens of just one character, so I have to be sure his knowledge comes from what only he experiences. Even though I know everything as the author, I can only reveal to the reader what comes from […]
3 Exceedingly Delightful Things
At 6:20 AM, my husband calls me to the window to see something exceedingly delightful (and seldom seen) by humans. Two Pileated Woodpeckers perform a mating dance in my front yard. I’m not kidding. The male bows to the female, begins to hop a circle around her, and then flaps his wings around the trunk […]