Thirteen years ago, God wrote it loud, carved it deep in the walls of our hearts: It doesn’t matter what makes sense. And because He knows I need things repeated, not quite two years later He traced over the words again, and the letters were block-shaped and quick.  He added this: And it doesn’t matter […]

Mom, come look. She says it breathlessly, wiping sweat and wild hair from her forehead with her hand. I stand at the sink, washing my hands with the honeysuckle soap, preparing to chop onions for our supper. “Come look at what?” I ask, drying my hands on a towel.  I reach in the cabinet for […]

It’s funny when it’s a game.* I mean, it’s inside joke material that will make us giggle for years, how I got my tongue stuck to a frozen flagpole became Iwo Jima in the space of fifteen minutes.  But the truth is, these strips of paper should be framed as reminders of this: I don’t have all the information. […]

We gather, curling into chairs and each other, a half-moon twice bonded by blood—blood in our veins and scarlet-robed in Christ. There’s something important about this—the gathering.  Living, we circle each other as satellites, moving in and away, making different bright constellations.  But in these moments of worship, we are all here, all present, all […]

Every day is a feast day, really–the table prepared and gilded, platters piled high, the celebration abundant. All our giving thanks, all our gathering at table, begins with grace. So too, the meal we celebrate as first.  And this the history shared with my children as they dip their forks in richness (I wonder, do you […]

Clouds, faintest gray, blanket the sky thick, like fleece smoothed with an efficient hand.  From the window, I glimpse fiery trees, tall in the brisk wind, the first drops of rain gathering on their leaves like gem stones.  And I give thanks for the trees on fire but not burning, the reminder of warmth against an icy […]

“Mom, I need you to pray with me about something.” It’s the first thing she says to me—she who is both daughter and sister by grace, she standing framed by the car window, the afternoon sun making her hair all blazing light.  The breeze rushes in, stealing the heat. I smile, nodding.  “Okay.  What shall […]

The day Fear lays my friend flat, pressing her back, her head on the hood of my car, the day her tears dot the pavement at our feet, Adam is the only one who knows what to do. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with what he lacks. Adam and I have a routine […]

Something about the way he broke that day reminded me that living is cross-shaped. “Adam has been crying for the last few hours,” she says to me, the aide instead of the teacher, walking carefully to my window as I park the car. “The last few hours?” Oh, how the living hurts, how it drives […]

Sometimes the thief comes early, sliding into our sleep, wrapping his black fingers tight around our throats.  He reeks of murderous jealousy, the kind that killed Abel, the kind that taints every breath and sits heavy on the heart. Zoe stands in front of the dry erase board, not yet fully awake, her hair a […]