It hardly feels like it’s been weeks now, weeks since we sat in my living room sharing friendship, talking about what inspires us.  And when these dear sister-friends of mine turned my question back to me, I said, “A million things.  A million things inspire me.”  I listed for them just some and neglected many more, but […]

We spend an afternoon at the table passing sheets of sticky letters, photographs, pens.  Before I turn my attention to helping Riley through homework, before cooking, before folding the towels, Zoe and I sit together tasting gratitude like honey on our tongues.  I press down a bit of light-catching foam and wonder why it feels […]

In the afternoon, we burst through the door, with three different conversations knotting in the air—one thread hard to follow, one dangling, one darting so fast I can’t keep up.  A general fumbling ensues for snacks, and Mom, I need to tell you, and What I have to do today is, and May I watch Tom and Jerry, […]

Morning comes and we hear the sound of the ocean, the crash of waves. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that sound,” Kevin says, fresh from sleep.    Almost all week, we’ve kept the door open to hear the sea, and I keep listening to the Spirit reminding me that the voice of […]

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 […]

Sometimes my hurry seeps into the most precious places. Sometimes I carry it into eternal spaces, into my living resurrected, into holy things not made for hurry.  Hurry is a temporal symptom.  It is a physical distraction.  Hurry is born of all that passes away. With a sigh, we lay our hands gently against our […]

I admit it:  Sometimes my attitude stinks. I wake up heart sick—breathing sighs, swallowing complaint, coughing up rot.  It spreads quickly, my gray brooding.  Suddenly I look around, and my husband and children carry my heavy.  My ungratefulness wraps their shoulders, black and thick-chained.  And together we ache, weary of this place, and our blinded […]

Streaks of fire and amber color the clouds, royal streamers declaring another day done, and I sit down with the glory at my back and the warm, afternoon breeze tickling my cheeks. We love Summer for meals on the screened porch out back, where we can hear the birds singing loud and see the worms […]

I love so many hurting people. And the impulse I have, because it’s God obliterating me, is to bring them joy. I want to grab the heavy shadows shrouding them and rip them apart with my hands. I want to free them from the grip of the things that steal their laughter. I want to […]

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 […]