When You Feel Like The Edges Of Your Life Are Crumbling And You Need Solid Anchors
I stood on the edge of a cliff wondering whether the rock would hold me if I ventured too far to the edge. From my high vantage point, I could see the vast array of autumn colors and the large lake down below—Devil’s Lake. I saw men and women with ropes anchored in rock, thrown […]
Some Thoughts on Dying When You Feel Like It and the Hope That Stops You
It is late September. The sugar maple is tinged with fire, a burning mix of orange and red and yellow, engulfing the green. Honking Vs of geese fly over the barn. One yellowed leaf curls on the grass. Three Sandhill cranes lift off alfalfa field, warbling their way into the air, a trinity created by […]
A Heads Up When You’re Feeling Down
Looks like my sunflowers are having a hard day. Or week. Or month. Look at their heavy heads hanging low! Every year these Russian Giants break out from small seed buried a half-inch below crumbled earth mixed with composted horse manure. A great growing ground—fresh earth and the once icky! Within three months, stalks rocket […]
Do We DARE Ask God for ANYTHING?
Why do we have to go away—go into the wilderness—go where we are completely unplugged—to hear God? We don’t. But sometimes, I do. Maybe it’s because God whispers? Maybe it’s because God would rather not shout? Maybe it’s because I let myself get too busy—let my mind get so cluttered—let my life get so full […]
A Letter for My Father (and maybe you?)
Dear Dad, We have history, you and me. Like the time you made that multi-colored Styrofoam tower with me and it reached clear up to the ceiling. Even you needed a chair to place that last block, though in my mind you could touch the clouds without one. That’s what five year-old girls think of […]
When the World is Falling Apart and You Need Your Own Care Package
Sometimes I read the headlines and am tempted to despair. Sometimes I’m tempted to feel guilty for my own problems when I see those suffering from darkness all over the world, feeling real terrors of their own. Then again, I know Jesus cares for all—for all the masses and for just one. He suffered and […]
How Not to Covet Others’ Blooms (and How to Be Grateful for Where You’re Planted)
Why is it that EVERY year I go through the SAME cycle? My faulty memory is as predictable as my perennials popping through the earth’s crust every spring. Forgetting the warm will finally arrive and plants will once again rise, I wait impatiently, looking every day for life signs. The first of May, I still […]
Rest for Our Souls
Another rainy day here on the farm. Ah, Wisconsin! How variable is your weather! Yet, I will give thanks because this is God’s day. I will consider the good, the lovely, no matter the condition of the weather or the condition of a soul. I will give thanks and do what I can to make less-than-pleasing […]
Banged Up
It’s spring. Birds and kids are flying. And some of each got banged up recently. Nick ran around in the dark playing Capture the Flag with his Boy Scout troop. Suddenly, his body hurled forward while his foot stayed behind, bound by a protruding tree root. A trip to the ER and an x-ray showed […]
Broken and Burned
We go on the hunt today. Through field still cold and unturned, we hold our destination in sight, a ramshackle barn and a crumpled man’s home. The ruins. The broken. The history. The textures of a life long-lived. That’s what we’re after. We don’t want prettified. We want real and we want to see the deep […]
You Reap More Than You Sow
Welcome to the Saturday gallery of glory! Today’s post is a tribute to a dear soul in my life. How can I label her? It’s difficult to find just the right words. I met her when she was 15, I think, while shopping at a local grocery store. Those who know my effusive personality know that […]
Good Friday—Our Hope
Reflecting on what Jesus did on this day brings me to a still, quiet place of awe and gratefulness. I can’t fathom His suffering, His love, His utter determination to not leave us as broken orphans in a broken world. He chose to heal us with his life—and death. His choice cost him everything. We […]