21Aug 12, 2016
“Where are you going?” He asks, in a voice muffled with sleep, a voice just on the edge of awareness. My hand stills on the doorknob. I turn back toward him, not much more than a shadow. “I’m goi–I can’t sleep.” My voice falls lightly. “I need to—I don’t want to keep you awake,” I […]
22Apr 15, 2016
Early evening, and already I feel splintered and scattered and sore from carrying the day. It has been one of those—the kind of day that wakes me before the sun, pressing into me in the emptied hours, and then sends me chasing time and late for everything; the kind of day in which, right from […]
23Mar 25, 2016
In the early hours before the sun rises, we rise, and we’re so tired we move around in silence for a while, fumbling to make the bed, pressing back against sleepiness to dress for exercise before we find an excuse. We’ve tried so hard for intentionality with regard to first things—time with God, time with each […]
24Jan 8, 2016
Today, this extravagant Gift: Gently, he traces my cheekbone with the edge of his thumb, just lightly. It is a simple, wordless gesture, so powerfully warm as to thaw the edges of the day. “I know,” I say, “I have a nasty bump there,” thinking immediately of the blemish on my cheek, red and tender […]
25Jan 2, 2015
She follows me upstairs, after we return from some festive errand, and we drop our bags on the floor. She touches my shoulder, gripping me lightly, catching my gaze. “Will you do something for me?” She asks, as though the possibility exists that I will say “no,” though we both know I never would. “Sure,” […]
26Mar 7, 2014
I call it my spot, that place right beside where I seem to melt into him like a carefully sculpted, invisibly bonded part; that place I best know how to fit. It is a place carved in the shape of me. In the early morning, this is how we pray: He reaches for me, and I […]
27Oct 4, 2013
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 […]
28May 31, 2013
“How did he ask you?” She leans forward, a piece of cantaloupe dangling on the end of her fork. I watch the fruit drip honeyed juice on her plate, anointing terra cotta flowers. Her eyes are full moons. She waits, as though caught on the cusp of a good story. I follow her eyes, glancing […]
29Mar 15, 2013
In the afternoons, his daughters run to him. They hear his keys jingle in the lock, and nothing matters except that he’s home. Words hang in the air between us. Pencils roll off the table where they’ve been carelessly tossed down. I lift my hands out of the dishwater and dry them on a towel. […]
30Oct 5, 2012
“This way that we love, that’s how it should be loving God,” He says this morning, eating breakfast beside me. “The way that we communicate, the way you know how I’ll feel about something, how you hear my voice in your head, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be with Him.” He folds his napkin, […]