Life Fires
Our first hikes together were on St. Petersburg sidewalks, my husband and I and our about-to-be-adopted children. We all held hands and meandered through a park where we skipped stones on the pond and all spoke with each other in Russian. We walked every day while waiting for our court date to become a legal family. […]
True Friends
A friend loves at all times . . . there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 17:17 & 18:24 Welcome to a gallery of portraits I took this week on a glorious Wisconsin day—our first of the year where we could be outside on the farm without coats. This was […]
Vision of Glory
One thing I ask of the LORD, This is what I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To gaze upon the beauty of the LORD And to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in his […]
Ticked Off But Moving On
Tick. Tick. Tick. The time ticks off the clock. It’s 2 AM and the Florida moon is an illuminated sliver on its side. The screen bends the light into a cross slicing straight through the center. I want to grab that moon by the tail and swing as a child, my curls swaying along with […]
All Ands and No Buts
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die, A time to plant and a time to uproot, A time to kill and a time to heal, A time to tear down and a time to build, A time to […]
Harvesting Goodness
There were no cell towers—only a satellite phone on the arch of an island known as Harvester in Shelikof Strait, a thirty minute skiff ride from Kodiak’s Larsen Bay where our bush plane landed. The Fields family are the only human inhabitants on this bit of Alaskan wilderness. They spend every summer setting salmon nets, […]
Some Thoughts on Thankfulness
No pretty photos today. No eye candy. Just some black and white reality, I do believe. There’s a Facebook trend I’ve seen lately. People are taking the challenge to spend time naming three things they are thankful for each day for five days. When they post their thanks, they nominate three other people, challenging them […]
The Joy of Serving
There is freedom in self-forgetfulness. Sometimes life pounds us hard, straight down into the ground and we feel like we’re stuck forever in the hard. Even in such times and in such places, there can be moments of relief when we allow God to move through us, right where we are. Our family is in […]
Coyote Ugly
The day was like any other. Except that it wasn’t. As usual, my morning ritual is to wake to a pot of fresh Starbucks Verona Roast, programmed to brew at precisely 5:00 so when I roll out of bed at 5:10 I don’t have to wait for my first sip of the new day. I […]
Desert of Life
Flying into Tucson, I looked down and saw brown. Lots of brown ground with not much that I would call pretty—not like Wisconsin in the spring where budding trees splash green against robin’s egg blue sky, and purple and yellow are pushing through with crocus and daffodil. I have come to the desert. Dry and dusty. The mountains blur in the haze […]
Hooves
How much do we hunger and thirst for God? Do we come ravenous as if our lives depended on His sustenance? Do we come panting, tongues parched, yearning for just a cool drop of water to satisfy? It takes the voice of God to break denial and forgetfulness. It takes daily reminders that we are […]
Ashes
Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down . . . We sang it for fun, way back when I was young. Didn’t know the meaning. Still don’t. Urban legend says it’s about people dying horrible deaths during the Black Plague that swept through Europe long ago. But […]