I step down the ladder and balance my paintbrush on the edge of the can, reaching down to trace the paint-tattoo on my knee with one finger.  This now dry glob—when did that happen?–looks like a Maui Mist cloud, all wispy at the edges.  I clench and unclench my hands, sore, noticing the red welts rising like blistering […]

I have moments I collect like treasure–the moments I never thought I’d see, and this is one of them: I rush in late in the middle of a song and slide into a seat next to Kevin, picking up the melody, letting the words gather in my mind. What heights of love, what depths of […]

He places the card in my hand, lightly fingering the rough fold, the paper blue like a storm in the middle of the afternoon or the ocean in places very deep.  I look at the flat, incongruent edges and see fibers; wet, bruised pulp; dye on someone’s fingers.  It’s remarkable to see the beginnings of […]

I find her note on my desk.  It’s just a yellow sticky note written in ballpoint, but the print is her own.  I can almost see her hand gripping the pen. That’s it, a small, blinding-bright effort to encourage, inspired by some of Ann Voskamp’s ideas for living given I’ve slapped up on our refrigerator door […]

It’s hard to explain what it’s like, watching a child slowly connect, as though another sidelined piece of the puzzle has suddenly locked into place; it’s hard to describe the shape of that grin, the one that knows the sweet taste of grace, but here it is, for us: He sits cross-legged in the center […]

I don’t know how we accomplish anything without each other. The day drifts away and we fall into order at the table, stamps and labels and letters in thick stacks in front of us, ropey veins like roots—more pronounced by the passing of years—rising from the backs of our moving hands.  You’d know we belonged […]

Travel weary and temporarily keyless, we knock, feeling as dusty as the door, as parched as the plants.  I run my thumb along the delicate thinning edge of a swooping leaf, crisp and browned, like old parchment.  On the door, the vinyl letters have broken in places and begun to curl away, even as they still […]

I ask them to tell me something good, something grateful, something excellent, right there in the last light of day, and she grins at me, dipping her chin into the shadows. Coming home, Zoe says.  It’s the thanks-giving she offers every day.  She tucks her hair behind her ears as she says it, still grinning.  It’s […]

In the dark, we slide our feet into flip flops, creeping out the door with steamy mugs of coffee balanced in our hands, with plump towels draped and dangling from our arms.  Whispering, we search the sky for signs of first light, for wisps of cotton-candy pink.   Carefully we descend the stairs, touching foot […]

I love the light when it’s fresh at the start of the day.  It’s like a clean window we’ve not yet touched with our fingers; like the diaphanous edges of some sacred space.  Sitting on the porch in the morning feels like resting in the palm of God’s hand as He slowly opens his fingers.  This […]