Fallen
God, I thank you for the respite from daily toils and cares You gave us last week. And I thank you for the fall . . . All five of us got to get away, way up north, just over the border of Wisconsin and into the western tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Big Powderhorn […]
How to Get Real with Your Maker
Lament. To express grief for or about. To mourn. Sometimes when you’re in the midst of darkness, you can’t see the light shining behind. It’s there. But you can’t see the sun. You can’t feel the warmth. All seems like shadow and you wonder if the clouds will ever roll away, like your soul just […]
One Resolution
I asked him a simple question expecting a simple answer. . . “When do you talk with Jesus?” He stood in front of me and said . . . “Well, the first thing I do is get up. And then I go to the bathroom. And then I eat breakfast. Then I get dressed, brush […]
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 […]
Faith, Not Feelings
It’s 5 AM and pitch black dark in this house. The heat hasn’t raised yet from the overnight low. I open my eyes to the blind of it all—eyes wide but seeing nothing—eyes wide and feeling everything. Too much. I feel TOO MUCH. The anxiousness I know too well greets me, first thing. Oh, I’ve […]
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 […]
Singing in the Rain (and Fog)
Will it never end? We’ve been living in a fog for so long I’ve lost count of the days. The ground is so saturated from rains I squish my way to the barn, thinking my front lawn has now become a bog. I feel like I’m starting to mold! We’re staring down July 4 a week away […]
A Field Trip to Remember
I picked her up at 4 PM sharp, that precious daughter of ours. Through all these past tough weeks of trying to stabilize thoughts and emotions, she went to work cleaning up others’ messes and just the plain old dirt that accumulates in life. At least the messes she cleans CAN be cleaned up. Some […]
Closing and Opening
Some openings are sweet. Like this morning as I rub my eyes and open them slow to a new dawn with sun just about to sprout over that wide expanse of water I can see from my bedroom window. It’s just before 5 A.M. I scoot over to that man of mine, the one I […]
Climb
She loved to tell me how she was such a tomboy as a kid—how she climbed those gnarled apple trees and ate those green fruits till she got sick at her stomach. And I loved thinking I was like my mom in this particular way. I loved to climb. One of my earliest memories was […]
New Life
I need a resurrection from the dead. Everything in me hurts, thanks to a respiratory flu that has kept me either close to or in bed for three days now. My head aches, my nose is raw and red, my eyes are swollen and weepy, even my hair follicles hurt! Medicated with NyQuil and Dayquil round-the-clock, I’m […]
Hope that Flies and Hops and Sings
The sand hill cranes are back. I saw and heard the first flock of thirteen yesterday flying over our farm, trilling. And the red-winged blackbird? The robin? My husband and I saw one of each yesterday on our walk along our farm’s trails—our first sightings of spring. One sat in a tree—the black and red […]