This morning a verse that I’ll carry all day, like a go bag or, a staff that bears my weight and steadies my feet: Continue steadfastly in prayer, staying awake in it with thanksgiving. I sat on my parents’ back porch for a while just receiving provisions, grace, from God, sipping coffee while the day […]

Dear friend, our work is worship. My sister-friend, who forever speaks God’s words back to me, sends this text in the early morning, while the daylight is still new, as I rub my eyes and contemplate the day, the work, that I know God has planned well ahead of me. They are burnt offerings. By […]

It’s evening here, where our feet beat a path down a dizzying urban road that smells like sunbaked asphalt and motor oil and sweat, like jasmine perfume and donuts and bitter coffee, where stars blink on the buildings as well as in the sky, lighting the night an inky crimson black.  The intersections pulse with […]

On Saturday morning, we gather, rumpled and meandering, around the brunch table, where steam curls lazily over mugs of coffee and the fruit of God heaps in bowls, vibrant and kind, at the center.  We wear our pajamas and our morning hair, the lines on our faces from our pillows.  We savor our food and […]

So often we don’t need words; we need an embodiment of love.  We need compassion as a posture, protection like a shielding movement, one body curling over another. Let’s don’t just talk about love, the apostle John once wrote, let’s practice it. “You need to learn to pay attention to more than just the words […]

For me, recovery is the hardest part of sprinting. Watch beeps and I look down, silently counting how many more intervals I have yet to go on this run, because the part I dread isn’t the sprint itself but the breath-starved gulping that comes when the effort is over.  Resolved, I spring forward, legs and […]

On the phone, the cheery woman from Miracle League Baseball (MLB) asks, “So what do you know about us?” Given Adam’s particular interest in baseball, I had filled out an online application for him. I relay to the woman what Josh, having played for years, has told me sometimes half-grumble, that in an MLB game, […]

The morning after an event, a friend sends a group picture. Phone ding, watch buzz, and here I am in the crisp birth of morning, opened to God like a newborn settling in for sustenance. I sit in the quiet beauty, eyes closed, hands empty, soul wholly-gulping the intimate holy.  This oneness I know to […]

Adam’s delight. This my friend—my sister—texts after looking at the pictures from our trip, just those two words and a series of hearts, having arrived in seconds at the treasure I will carry with me long after even our memories of summer have faded.  Adam’s delight, that wild smile stretching wide across his lean face, […]

I had asked God to help me see the people around me, even at the theme parks, even as we thrilled through the rides and managed the crowds, even waiting in lines and eating carnival-style food on the fly, even sweaty and wet and foot-sore at the end of the day, that I might have […]