For the better part of an hour, I listen to our engaged couple getting ready to go for a walk. They arrive at the moment together after lunch, having noted and discussed at length that, in the plan I had helped them create for the afternoon, a walk comes next.  I hear them still processing […]

On a Wednesday, I sit waiting for physical therapy, twisting my stiff neck to look as a woman walks in with an ash-black smudge right in the center of her forehead. This looks like no accidental blemish I’ve ever seen, and for a moment, feeling a little uncomfortable for her, I wonder how it came […]

We walk the winter road like Job’s friends, the three of us–Riley, Josh, and me, coming from a distance, the wind whipping at the hem of my black lace dress, the edge of Josh’s dark coat, the smooth ends of Riley’s brassy bob.  Riley’s eye shadow looks, I notice just this moment, like smudges of […]

“So many people still have their Christmas lights out,” Kevin says, speaking our mutual thought aloud into the chilled night as we drive home, as we slow to absorb the weighty glistening that somehow makes everything else feel a little lighter. In every season, twinkling lights remind me of Jesus, the Light the darkness can’t […]

I can hear Riley running behind me now, feet crunching on the glittering asphalt, her breaths ragged and shallow, and I smile, remembering a conversation I’d had with her about breathing.  Riley has been training to run a 5K. Here we all are, just a few days past Christmas, on the other side of the […]

My friend steps in the house quietly, glancing toward the desk where Riley sits taking an online college course, slipping her arms around me to pull me into a hug. “It’s good to see you,” I say softly over her shoulder, thinking that there’s nothing quite like feeling your arms full of friendship. She draws […]

“You should try this on,” my friend says.  “These are your colors.” These are your colors.  Of course, she means the dress she has pulled out for me, the one that swirls with Autumn colors—olive, tangerine, crimson, gold, but I am thinking how, in scripture, a robe of colors means a robe of grace, how […]

“Are you Adam’s mom?” Our young friend Becky asks me, lightly fingering a little-girl hairclip at the side of her head, looking up at me with wide, quiet eyes of fathomless blue.  I feel touched by the hint of wonder in her expression. Becky must be in the third grade.  I had watched earlier as […]

At the water park, we wait in a sunny line on a meandering sidewalk bordered by honeysuckle just past the bloom, holding our rafts, rafts that will soon take us down a waterslide.  As a group, we exude anticipation, a chattering hope spurred on by the whooping sounds of delight we’ve heard all along our […]

“I’m concerned about Adam’s schedule for the summer,” Riley says to me, folding her hands in front of her and digging one toe into the outdoor carpet on our back porch. The hinges of the door haven’t yet stopped screeching, and a great wind rustles the leaves of the trees, and I take a deep […]