My first thought, when Kevin casually mentioned the coming rain, the bone-cold breeze, the silent freezing night, was that the blooms would die. I peered out the back window, watching the pear tree dance, decked in blooms like a lacy bride, pure, new, completely vulnerable to the fury of unvanquished Winter. All week, I had […]

Late afternoon, I fold bath towels, touching the unraveling sides with my fingers, thinking of all the skin these towels have dried, all the cleaning, all the blessing in their worn softness; thinking this can happen to bodies too, that I want to age and unravel through years of humble service. The warmth of the […]

“There you are, Mom,” Riley says, even though I have been walking beside her the last half hour, even though she has never lost sight of me.  She says this with joy and without rebuke, as though I am the prodigal, momentarily disappeared and just returned, as though she’s been watching for me. She continues […]

In the middle of the morning, I step back from the window, from that view of heavy clouds and leaves dripping rain like a cleansing grief, and feeling my own vulnerability, I wander down the hall to my husband. I walk in the room and he turns and I step into his arms without saying […]

In the morning, while the coffee drips and darkens and I pour rich cream into the bottom of a mug, Riley stands on a chair, riffling the contents of a cabinet in search of a flower vase. Yesterday, she walked in after school with armfuls of Valentine’s Day love–flowers and balloons and chocolates, fresh with […]

“It’s Monday!” Riley says, with the day still so new that the morning light looks soft and tentative and the chill outside clouds the windows. My favorite backyard tree looks bony and bare, empty-handed and reaching like me, but Riley glows like a sun-drenched bloom, pink-cheeked from sleep, bright with anticipation. I look up at […]

“I want to take care of you. Let me,” my friend says, pressing a lunch into my hands, even though it’s the last one she could eat and instead, she’ll be eating almonds and apricots from the stash she keeps in her purse. She doesn’t know she’s preaching. Here we are, the two of us […]

In the afternoon, we walk, and Riley’s normal sunshine has turned to storm, silent, brooding thick like the blanketing clouds of winter. I have stopped glancing toward her, because when I do, she glances away; and I’ve stopped asking, because my questions make her dissolve into embarrassed grief. Unintentionally, I’ve taught her that sadness has […]

Into the night and our deep sleep comes the blare of an alarm. History repeats.  Emergency emergency wake up wake up, the alarm screams, and cartoon me jumps up and runs immediately into the wall, while the real not-yet-lucid me picks up my phone, swings my legs over the side of the bed, and pulls […]

Henry Blackaby, in his powerful study Experiencing God, taught me the life-changing difference between joining God where he already works and asking him to work according to my plans.  “We don’t choose what we will do for God,” Blackaby said.  “He invites us to join Him where He wants to involve us.” Riley has shown […]