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 […]
Hold Hope
I ponder all the daffodil bulbs I know are eight inches under the earth. Three weeks ago there was no evidence. In the dark and deep, my daffodils remained invisible since September. So how did I know they were there? I planted them. The live bulbs were just resting, just waiting till the sun called them up and out. […]
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 […]
FIRE!
I’m steeping in suffering, reading sociological, psychological, historical, and theological research and writings on the subject. Tim Keller, my favorite contemporary author, wrote a whole book last year, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, where he views the subject of suffering from different vantage points and offers sound advice about how to deal with it in ways […]
Finding Purpose in the Sick and Tired
I have been sick and tired. Literally. For exactly two weeks as of today. I’m familiar with respiratory ailments like bronchitis and I’ve even had pneumonia a couple times in the past but nothing has ever leveled me like what turned out to be Influenza A. I’ve always wondered why people die from the flu. […]
Can Hope be Born Again?
Our home is filled with Christmas lights. And nightlights. We don’t have little kids anymore and I’m not afraid of the dark. So why all the nightlights? Well, because I’ve stubbed and broken my toes too many times stumbling around in the dark trying to find my way . . . to the bathroom. That’s […]
A Spotted Woman
She stood there in the circle of three women and said this . . . “There’s nothing in this life like having a baby and having your baby have a baby.” She said it to the woman standing beside me, about my age, readying herself for her first grandchild due to arrive the natural way […]
Life on the Ledge
One of my best friends in the whole wide world read my last blog post. When I saw her she said something like this . . . Your words were lovely. You were really vulnerable in that piece. That’s what I remember her saying. And then I started getting anxious, again. I get anxious because […]
Always, Joy
He said it to me flat out, like he couldn’t wrap his head around the mystery of me . . . “I’m shocked that you sound so . . . JOYFUL. You’ve been through so much in your life that would have buried so many others. And yet, you just exude this joy.” We had […]
Running on Empty?
Today is the day for emptying. I’ll give you the pretty and spare you the other. Let’s just say that the “prep process” has begun for my procedure early tomorrow—the one I’ve been avoiding for FIVE YEARS. Since we’ve blown through our insurance deductible for the year, we’re racing to the finish, scheduling as many […]
Prophecy, End Times, and Seeking the Son with My Dog
If our dog were a human, she’d be a beach bum, I’m quite certain. Her days consist of eating, drinking, running around like a Tasmanian devil dog, and seeking those sun spots to stretch out and relax, to bask in the warmth. She’s pretty simple actually. She doesn’t read books or worry much, at least […]
Tree of Life
I knew there was something special about her, the first time I saw her standing solitaire on that grassy bluff a year ago. She fascinated me, maybe more than the grizzlies across the Shelikof Strait from her, stuffing themselves on salmon as I stood not twenty feet away. Last September, I watched her blown about […]