Is Jesus Enough?
Is Jesus really all we need? This weekend, my husband and I are stepping out with nothing clothing our hearts but hope and faith and love. Because sometimes the best thing is the hardest thing. Sometimes what’s best stings when hot tears roll down wrinkled face paths and we cry, “This, Lord?” I’m shaking on […]
Our God Sees
Just recently, I learned of a hidden discipline going on in our home. Nick thought it up and has been implementing it daily for two months. He makes me laugh. Like me, Nick loves country music. We laugh when singers croon about trucks and tractors and beer. I break into my scolding Granny voice and wag […]
Dry and Rattled
Is dry and rattled ever a good thing? Around here it is. Our south field is full of soybeans waiting. Dried up and rattling with the wind blowing through, plant leaves have gone from green to gold to brown, all in a season. And the beans are about ready for harvest. Am I? I have […]
Loser
Not for those in a hurry, but for those who crave real. After a week of observation—seeing human patterns and needs—this is for seekers and believers . . . I’m a loser. Aren’t we all? We’re all losers because we’ve all lost something, somewhere along the way. We know, in our deepest, darkest cracks. And […]
Bear and Fish, Fear and Trust
The bush plane descends and the pilot directs our attention to the ground through the right windows. “Those black dots down there are bears,” Glen tells the three of us traveling to Geographic Harbor, a remote spot on the coast of Alaska. We learn that people come from all around the globe to this exact […]
Get Real, Get God
So how was YOUR weekend? Care to be real? I’d certainly love to hear someone in cyberspace admit if theirs was an emotional disaster like mine! Misery loves company. But I don’t want to start my week miserably so I’m looking for voices who speak beyond miserable, for eyes that see beyond failure and giving […]
Insides and Outsides
My mother always told me not to judge a book by its cover. Often pretty outsides cover not-so-pretty insides and vice versa. Like this book here I found on the top shelf of our loft library . . . From the outside, it looks like a beat up dictionary or something, not inviting. But I […]
The Muck and the Green
So yesterday’s post sent me spinning, whirling around like the cottonwood white I dodged while on my country road walk. “Nobody wants to hear from you,” came haunting from old mother-places left long ago. But when a new voice, the One who calls and your heart hears loud and clear what your ears can’t . […]
One Word
We sit straight across from each other in a chic café. And she begins to tell of the grief journey her heart has trod through these past two years. Two years? I have known her for sixteen. How can one woman go through so much and still love God so great? The years have taken […]
Breaking Open
Tight closed I feel this morning not wanting any other to know my thoughts or feelings. But I will write. My heart breaks and I wonder why God does not heal. Why God, don’t you heal these three young brains damaged by alcohol before their tender lungs sucked their first breaths of earth air? Why […]
Beyond the Fog
Dawn revealed fog blanketing our land—opaque and mysterious, romantically beautiful, like folds of white tulle blurring the landscape. And my eyes blurred with prayerful tears. She left this morning after pancakes and strawberries. Seventeen. Little girl wrapped in woman’s body, arrested last week for theft. She needed a place to stay so we […]
Rest in Peace
West wind blows cold this morning as I zip my jacket and head to the barn. Cornflower-blue skies backdrop sunlit orange, yellow, and red leaves beginning to fall. Green has said its last goodbye to trees tucking in for the long, winter rest. Branches shedding jeweled adornment reveal themselves, bare and dark. Trees know they […]