Always Listen to Hope
This morning in church, I remember the day a wise friend told me that the Holy Spirit is always a voice of hope. “Don’t listen to any voice that isn’t hope,” she said. I was still a teenager, and my heart felt like a storm every day. I thought nothing would ever change. I thought […]
Big Picture Moments
I’m fixing my hair because I’m headed to a funeral. At a funeral, you’re forced (finally) to “trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding.” I’m a girl who loves to know the narrative. I love to know what’s going on: the why, the how, the when, the where. I’m probably too controlling. […]
How Emily Dickinson (and a Friend’s Blog) Saved My Morning
I’ll just begin by telling you a certain child in my family vomits seven times last night. This is the other child (not the one with the entirely different virus). I don’t actually wake up this morning because I never actually went to bed. Everyone complains. Everyone feels miserable, and to make matters worse, it’s […]
Do You Know What’s Coming?
We leave to travel for nearly eight weeks today. (Don’t worry, Jack, Louie, and Snowflake have a family living in our home all summer.) I take one last look around the garden. I realize that nature will offer several gifts when I return: First, I can look forward to ripe raspberries. Then, the blackberries. The […]
Believing the Best
My daughters were flower girls in a wedding yesterday. Their job was to follow the bride everywhere, keep their satin dresses clean, and smile. I envisioned disaster the whole morning. I could just see my youngest stepping on the bride’s train and sending her flying on her face. I could just picture the oldest one […]
A Strange Lesson from My Mother’s Day Candle
My mother was the first to teach me that candles have “memory.” When you light a jar or pillar candle the first time, you must let it burn for a few hours until the wax pools all the way to the edges. You see, the candle remembers how far the wax pooled that first time, […]
What Has to Die in Me?
This afternoon, I notice my winterberry bush budding in the backyard. Those blooms hold particular significance this Easter season because I’ve beheld their cycle this whole year. I see death and resurrection, and I suddenly remember the importance of death. For months, this bush seemed more acquainted with death than life. The brittle and […]
When You Stop Resisting God
Last week, I was asked to write a piece on depression and Lent for The High Calling. At my lowest point, I imagined God asking the question, “Will you live the life I ask you to live?” I was humbled and so encouraged by the comments on this little essay called, The Best Question. (Click […]
Your Fresh Start
This morning my daughter brings out her whiteboard easel and draws me a coconut palm. She says, “Mom, you will love this.” My coconut obsession has infiltrated my daughter’s imagination. She carefully chooses the right dry erase markers. A whiteboard offers the kind of freedom and mistake-proof activity just right for her age. Permanent errors […]
Rearrange the Day!
This morning, I scrape egg off of a blue and white plate. I overhear a pastor, Tim Keller, speaking about work in a sermon video. I wipe my hands on the dish towel and strain to hear. Keller says, “Work is rearranging the raw material of a particular domain for the flourishing of everyone.” I […]