Gratitude is not the festive color of a day, but the shape of a life redeemed. My deepest wish is that Thanksgiving finds you crowded warm around a table, surrounded by joy. I hope laughter makes you giddy, love satisfies you way down deep, and memory soothes like a hand gently resting against your back. […]

“But…I don’t want to be fat.” That’s what Zoe said to me, months ago, her diabetes yet undiagnosed, her body slowly consuming itself.  I looked at her, sitting there at the breakfast table picking at a piece of toast, and I thought, “I wonder when I started thinking that way.” By then, her bones had […]

You say grace before meals./All right. / But I say grace before the play and the opera, /And grace before the concert and the pantomime, /And grace before I open a book, /And grace before sketching, painting,/ Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing,/And grace before I dip the pen in the ink (~G.K. Chesterson, as […]

May your unfailing love be my comfort…(Psalm 119:76) Last night, they sat in the chair together, a boy and his dad.  For years, Kevin’s lap has been the place where Adam finds the most comfort.  In his most terrible moments, when he cries so hard he gasps for air, this is the place he remembers […]

Word to the wise: when you step off the airplane in Mexico, prepare to be deceived. The plane lands, and we share a conspiratorial smile, Kevin and me.  It is the smile of sixteen years as best friends, our souls all blended together; the smile that travels all the way up to our eyes, glinting […]

Just when the caterpillar thought his life had ended, he became a butterfly. ~Proverb For days, we stare at the five chrysalides hanging from the top of the butterfly habitat Zoe requested for her birthday, anticipating new birth.  Transformation is something we are passionate about, knowing it to be God’s skill, His masterpiece.  He’s woven […]

Last week, two friends knelt in the dirt beside me, the grass pressing lines into their ankles, and washed my feet. That’s exactly what they did, even if it looked more like twisting shovels into the earth and planting a little hope.  We buried the seeds of allium, hyacinth, tulips, and daffodils, tucking them away for […]

October feels ripe for walking.  So on Saturday, we walked in the park, away from hurry.  For a while, we left all else behind and moved straight to the heart of Grace, the evidence in things created. The leaves applauded our rest, dancing with the wind, dappling the sunlight that drifted through the trees, gold […]

I’m a runaway, convinced to stay by the love of a God who sees me. “Where have you come from and where are you going?” God said her name, mentioned details about her life, and then the question.  Hagar was an Egyptian, a slave, no one He should have sought.  She was an expectant mother used […]

As a little girl, I spent hours outside, running wild with the wind.  I lived in a house on the marsh of the Lowcountry, where the coming of rain smelled of pluff mud and rotting marsh grass, and humidity lay thick like a hand on my cheek. I played arm in arm with Summer heat, imagination […]