A Timeless Christmas Priority
It’s crazy how much time it takes to make the season perfect. The ratio of hot chocolate and cookies to lights and greenery is only outdone by the numbers on my gift list. What should fil...
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2019
30 articles published this year.
Hidden Things
A rubber duck accompanied my walk around the room. I laid it in plain sight on a shelf of the bookcase. Its classic yellow face and orange bill pointed to the door where my daughter would...
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What if the Light at the End of the Tunnel is Just More Tunnel?
-Guest post by Charity George Too often I wait till I’ve reached the light at the end of the tunnel, to be thankful. “Thank you that those test results turned out good.” “Thank you that t...
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How to Kill a Thankful Heart
I did it again. I took out my measuring tape and measured. It wasn’t the dainty kind I carry in my purse and embarrass my husband with, or the big black one pocketed in his tool belt hang...
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Is your practice helpful or harmful?
My dad, talented in all things musical, had a sharp ear and an equally sharp tongue. His pitch was perfect. He judged without apology. “Should have been a B-flat not a B-natural,” he burs...
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Those moments no one sees
It was in a moment when the house was quiet, the girls at school and my husband at work that the little blue sleeper called my name again. The sun’s bright rays bleached my vision and I s...
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I Want to Hold You Too
“I want to hold you,” he begged at his mommy’s knee, arms upraised toward her, little toes tipped his almost two-year-old body up and down expectantly. “I want to hold you too,” she said....
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Get rid of the Filth and Put on the Clean
Before farms had fashionable “mud rooms,” they existed. “Don’t you come in the front porch,” my mom insisted to my black-dirt-clothed brothers before supper. Because of course on the farm...
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Cutting Your Husband’s Food and Other Friendly Tasks
So, I cut his roast chicken. Into little square edibles. When I looked up, he wore a puzzled expression, a little worried but seriously amused. I drew my eyes back down to where mangled b...
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Getting Out of the "Every-Day-is-Labor-Day" Cycle
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV) Typically on the farm, Labor Day meant a day to labor, another of many laboring days...
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The Armor, Your Battle and His War
They come, a little bewildered, some heralding children yapping at their ankles and running in circles, some almost newlyweds with blank-slate futures while others brave it alone. Obedien...
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My Mom, a Bar of Soap and Clean Talk
My parents weren’t really the “let the consequences teach her” kind of people. They were more the “let’s give her some consequences” types. But since I could always count on what my actio...
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You Don’t Want to Tear Down That Wall
“First,” my husband said listening to my remodeling ideas, “I need to see if it’s a load bearing wall.” My face fell like a house made of cards. In the back of my mind, from the day we pu...
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What’s Hiding in the Window of your Soul?
Recently our family, kids, spouses and grandkids got together at an airbnb for three days of togetherness. It took the form of lots of games, food, and hours of conversation. Kids ran thr...
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Without Apologies
I stood before my mini-version. Blonde hair curled at the shoulders, bright blue eyes sparkled, and a pleased smile lighted her face. Behind her on the wall splashed brilliant colors in w...
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He Gave Himself Up for Another
Before the carpenter’s sawdust brushed off, before the wood glue dried, before the grout hardened, the guy I married had to learn a new skill, the pregnant husband trade. Married four sho...
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When Clouds Hide the View
I’m a cloudy kind of person. Sometimes something in my soul shuts out the light and then the cloud passes and suddenly it’s as if the glory of the sun explodes inside of me and everything...
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BC and AD of Charity
I tend to separate my life into BC (before Charity's illness) and AD (After the Destruction) of Charity's physical body. Those categories can also stand for Before Children and After Daug...
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Leavening the Whole Lump
Flour frosted the kitchen like snow. A flour bin, a half-empty bottle of vegetable oil, and baking pans fought for territory on my counter. Little fingers thick with dough punched and kne...
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Where Do the Prayers of a Mom Go?
“No rest for the weary,” mom sighed. She bent down to pick up muddy boots and move them off the kitchen floor where they lay on their rubber sides, shells without spirits. She carried the...
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An Audacious Crown of Thorns
“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied. (Mark 15:2; NIV) Easter mornings looked like new clothes and smelled like ham baking. It culminated with E...
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Till Kids Do Us Part
Okay, so it’s possible I don’t like her child. That friend who’s been a friend for as long as I can remember, the one who dried my tears after break ups and sad movies, the friend who kne...
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Delight and Desire
Fire darted from blue eyes. “I don’t want to go.” White ruffles flounced around her squirming legs as we clicked the strap into her car seat. She crossed her arms, defiant. A frown like a...
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The Art of Talking Back
One of my daughters, might have had the advantage of most lawyers at age two. By the time she turned ten, she could befuddle my brain to the place where not only did I forget the point of...
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Where Common Sense Meets Brains
“Ain’t got the brains God gave a goose,” Dad muttered, shaking his head. He sat in his chair in front of the big old Zenith. Encased in a piece of furniture that fit the previous TV, the...
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What the Fig Leaf Won’t Cover
Well, the first lesson should be, never, absolutely never engage in conversation with a serpent. That is where everything started to go downhill. Because where else would Satan strike but...
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Echoes of Babies Never Heard
“Mamma, where are you?” I hear it in my thoughts like light feather snow around me. It drops into my silence and stirs memory sticky and sweet, of little hands that cup my face and turn m...
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How Wet are Your Feet?
They come, like the Israelites in Joshua 3-4, instructed to stick a foot into the water, and trust God for the next step. Testing, poking and prodding Jesus’ calling on their lives, they...
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There is Always Hope
The hospital room where my twenty-six-year-old daughter lay against snowy sheets grew quiet as a tomb. Her husband sat next to her. He leaned his back against the wall, holding her hand,...
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6 Questions That Will Center your New Year
New makes me skittish. While everyone else revels in the thought of a blank-slate New Year ahead, I’ve always anticipated a new beginning with a bit of fear and dread. When others see pos...
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