Weary fingers, mine, and tangled in her hair, weaving, weaving, weaving the wet strands in thick ropes down her back. For at least fifteen minutes every day, Riley and I become the reflection of generations of others before us–their angled arms, their busy fingers, their bodies bending, tending. Riley, still and waiting, tilts her face […]

Dumbbells gripped in hand, lifted over me like the weight that knots my neck, I remember thinking only of what will be next, after this. I used to plot it out by the hour, how I’d manage to do my way through the morning and into the afternoon. And then, and then, and then. How […]

About a mile out, the runner begins to hear the finish. When all he can see is still just road–that sunlit glint in the asphalt, those weather-worn and faded lines, the gravel and litter and patches of grass, the bib pinned to another runner’s shirt–he begins to hear first the music with its dull boom. […]

Rushing out of one appointment and late to another, I discover the text: Riley had a seizure. And in one second flat, I feel as though some vile bully just ran by and pushed me off my careful balance, and that even with my angry, road-scratched palms, I am somehow responsible for the world.  Alone.  […]

Saturday morning, Adam walks downstairs wearing his football jersey, which is blue like the crisp Fall sky, blue like his eyes.  I say walk, but his steps have a certain bounce that matches his wide smile. Maybe autism steals away my son’s words, but Adam’s body has always found its own ways to convey what […]

Driving home at night in the sluicing rain, I can barely make out the thick white lines that mark our lane.  Water arcs, pounding dull against the wheel wells, and Zoe says, “Go slow, Mom.  We’re almost home.” Go slow.  She’s right.  It really is the only safe way through. Tonight, it seems easier to […]

I am an everyday daughter of the King. Or, I am a daughter of the King every day. It’s all a matter of how I hold those words—wrapped sweaty and sqeezed together in the palm or held up to the Light.  I’ve come to see that the way I order those two words—where and how I […]

Lay it down.  That’s what you do. You press it in His hands hard the first moment you smell the rain.  Don’t wait to surrender it. Cover yourself good, wrap up with Him, spend more time there, instead of less. Lay it down right then, and ask the people who love you to stand with […]

“What about innocent children with cancer?  Where is god then.” There it is, questioning bold, just below this image: It’s a question for which there are no easy answers, one even believers ask when innocents suffer. Where is the throne of God, the Almighty King, loving, faithful, when this world doesn’t look much like a […]

Clouds the deepest gray, hovering close, and I gather myself into the van to retrieve my children, preparing for the storm.  It will rain soon, and hard.  I can smell it. And I never have enough for this part of the day. Honestly, I laugh and sometimes cry whenever I hear that someone thinks I […]