Opening Clams
I was enamored by the many sea otters I saw up close while in Alaska. They swim effortlessly, diving sleekly into ocean water depths in pursuit of shelled creatures—mussels and clams. Once they capture a closed shell, they bring it to the surface, turn onto their backs, open the shell, and float nonchalantly while enjoying […]
Zucchini God
That’s right. Here on the farm, we have a zucchini God. The day before, we had a visit from the corn God. Now before anybody gets freaked out and thinks I’ve gone AWOL on the one and only triune God, read on. In all my years, I have never seen a longer spring or a […]
Remember the Corn
Dear Little Faith, Remember last spring when you wrote that piece about corn? Remember how you photographed fields of weeds by your house and said how the farmers weren’t able to plant because of the cold and the wet? Remember how you said everyone was wondering if they’d ever be able to seed the ground […]
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 […]
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 . […]
Holding Hope
Where do I start? Last week started with our 21 year old daughter being accosted in a parking lot and a police report being filed. The next day our 19 year old son stomped out with suitcase in hand because he was tired of our rules. (He came back shortly.) My husband was gone to […]
Endings and Beginnings
Swimming against the current, salmon travel hundreds of miles from sea through river and come to a hard stop. The end. A dead end. I saw where the salmon end and begin yesterday. They end and begin at the falls. Each year, without fail, salmon swim through the mouth of the Columbia all the way to this […]
Anchors and Chains
When pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Dorothy says it as she wakes up from […]
Be Encouraged
Dis—couraged. I purposely broke that word apart. The word means to deprive of courage or confidence. To DISHEARTEN. To hinder by disfavoring. To DETER. To attempt to dissuade. Dis—courage. Dis—hearten. Dis—favoring. Sounds like hellishness to me. But I feel it deep inside. I can FEEL courage and heart and favor being sucked right out of […]
Remember and Know
What do you do when your insides are just like your outside—rainy, foggy, soggy? What do you do when you feel like you’ll never see the sun again or feel its warmth? How do you hold onto faith when it’s dripping wet and slippery? When faith that should be warm by now is still cold […]
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. […]
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 […]