Flooded
Skies open and Spring pours. Farm fields and low-lying forests flood. We wait for earth to absorb excess and bring forth new life. Absorb. How do we absorb Jesus when we are so flooded? Flooded with worry. Flooded with doubt. Flooded with guilt. Flooded with grief. Flooded with anger. Flooded with fear. Flooded […]
When Depression Hits Hard (All in One Day)
Three wonderful women. Three women struggling to hold on. Three women who have been through the wringer of life. Three women—all my friends. And I sat with all three in one day, separately. One woman’s loss is enormous. An adult daughter lost to cancer last September after watching her wither away, bit-by-bit for two years. […]
Glory Days
No, it’s not just a Bruce Springsteen song about days gone by. Glory days are every day we put ourselves into the presence of God and experience His goodness. I am practicing contemplation these days in my prayer time—pondering and considering God’s goodness and glory. Of all the years I have prayed, these days have […]
Love Means Having to Say You’re Sorry
Storm warning! High winds coming! I can feel the front moving in and I might just be ready to blow. I heard it on the radio yesterday—a study from some of my clinical psychology colleagues . . . . Apologizing lowers self-esteem. Therefore, we shouldn’t apologize. Ever. Honestly?! Some in the psychology world have taken insanity […]
Space to Flow
She walks into my kitchen as she does every Wednesday at this time, ready for lunch and good conversation. I feel like the boneless lamb leg I roasted on Easter, tied together with twine to keep it from falling apart. I’ve got to get out of here, I say to her firmly as I grab […]
Prepare the Way
I am at my normal pre-dawn perch and the cacophony has begun. Chirping birds telling the world to wake up. Morning and Spring are here! Prepare for the new day! Prepare for the new season! I think about this house—how one bird has flown north a few miles and is living in her […]
Up from the Ashes
I have Phoenix on my mind for two reasons. First, we’re going there. Fifteen days and counting. Second, I am one. I am a phoenix. In Egyptian mythology the phoenix was a bird that consumed itself with fire and, after 500 years, rose renewed from its ashes. I have not been literally consumed by fire […]
New Beginnings
Sometimes it takes Easter for the blind to see. Sometimes it takes a fresh encounter with the risen Jesus, even when we know Him well. Our pastor gave a heartfelt and brilliant sermon about hope yesterday—about how Jesus finishes the sentences we start in life—about how not to give up because WE don’t finish our […]