“It’s easier to just do it myself,” I mutter. A dishtowel hangs from my hand like a tail swaying against my hip. Chores, those supposedly helpful contributions are about to be my undoing. I re-order the haphazard pile of weeping plastic containers, dry them again, and rearrange the stack neatly in the right cupboard. “Seriously,” I […]
Continue Reading
The long marble hallway stretched like a tunnel ahead. I remember the wavy lines narrowed to another corridor where doctors and nurses passed like a hospital thoroughfare of workers intent on going and arriving. Something weird had happened to my eyesight ever since my daughter had been diagnosed with a brain stem lesion. Dark shadows […]
Continue Reading
Maybe now is actually the right time to doubt your faith. How can I say such a thing in the middle of the biggest global crises most of us have experienced? Why would I bring more uncertainty when most of us are terrified by this invisible enemy of our families, our loved ones and ourselves? […]
Continue Reading
It’s an odd time to sell a house. It’s an odd time to move. It’s an odd time. Boxes scatter the floor and emptiness echoes off the walls of the only house we’ve ever owned. Outside a For Sale sign hangs. The Sold sign never got put up because these days only what must be […]
Continue Reading
I don’t know about you, momma, daddy, grandmama, and granddad, but the last few weeks have fogged my brain and tattered my thinking. If today could be superimposed like tracing paper over the outline of one week ago, we would all stare and wonder what happened to life as we knew it. If we put […]
Continue Reading
How is your, “But even if He does not” faith? My husband, Phil, and I have been reading some of those New Testament verses that beg childlike faith. Verses like, “if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it,” John 14:14 (ESV) and “so that whatever you ask the Father in my […]
Continue Reading
My husband and I stayed in a motel in Nashville two nights before a tornado ripped through the area. We watched the destruction on television and wondered at the fact that we were just there, in its path. We marveled at our last minute decision to come home two days earlier than planned. A few […]
Continue Reading
What would it have been like to reach a hand to Jesus’ shoulder where he slept and shake him awake? We relate well to the waves of Mark 4 splashing into the boat, the wild winds and terrifying storm bigger and greater than our ability to bear. We understand that sinking feeling, and the panic […]
Continue Reading
“No, no, no,” he said. He held his little hand like a stop sign. His voice raised a breathy octave. “Let’s not play it like that, let’s say if you want to move ahead on red, you can.” He nodded up and down, cocked his head to the side and put his pleading blue eyes […]
Continue Reading
Anybody who grew up barefoot on a Kansas farm knows about stickers. A flat lying torture-in-waiting plant with seeds like tiny wooden barbs. They spread viciously, looking for tender skin to walk on them. Impossible to let fester, they took a lot of courage to pull out. I hated stickers growing up. Word had it […]
Continue Reading