She says it like it’s a thing you have to say to feel good about the day: Alright then, so I am pre-pared to be amazed. Her voice falls heavily on the two most important words in the sentence, prepared and amazed, and of course, she draws my attention. I roll back from my desk and turn, […]

In like a breeze after school they come, swift and rattling the edges of things, scattering papers and shoes and the crumpled wrappers from their lunches.  Riley’s cheeks bloom pink with the exhilaration of arrival, as though they’ve been far away and flying and have only just landed home, in from some place now only […]

I remember the year that opening gifts made my daughter weep. She stood in front of me, just there, tight blond curls falling haphazardly around her ears, belly pudging out the shirt of her Christmas pajamas, holding a silvery gift.  At 3, she still didn’t understand our expectant faces, or even what made toys fun, […]

I just want to feel better, she says, looking at me with those eyes–wide, blue like crisp Fall; those eyes that still say Mom, fix this, please, even though we’re both well past the point of believing I could actually do that. Her bookbag thunks to the floor and she tugs at her skinny jeans, […]

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 […]

So, we’re talking honest about real spiritual warfare, the gritty underbelly of living Loved, the ugly ways the enemy tries to douse our hot, Spirit-lit fire, and my friend says what maybe some of the rest of us have been just a little too timid to say, something that just sizzles with courage: He just […]

“I love you.” He says it slowly, the way he says everything, but lifting the word you, as if in emphasis.  It’s not enough just to fling the words into the air above her head and walk away.  He knows this.  Purposefulness has been a recent goal.  So instead, Adam bends his lean frame toward the […]

Arms full of teenaged girls, every afternoon.  I mean, I have their hair in my mouth.  Those long, honeyed strands fly in my face whenever my daughters curl their lithe bodies into me, the one pressing her cheek into my lap, the other settling her ear on my shoulder, reaching for my hand with long, bronzed […]

Twinkle lights cast warm light over their cheeks, their tawny skin, their sun-gold hair.  The summer breeze lifts long, errant strands—mermaid-streaked deep maroon-purple, steel blue.  The girls slide their thumbs over their foreheads, corraling without thinking.  As the day fades along the edges of the dinner hour and the five of us gather on the […]

Buttonhooks, he says. Buttonhooks?  The zucchini in my hand drips. I run a thumb over a crack in its waxy green skin, listening. “Buttonhooks!  ButtonHOOKS!” He tries hard to annunciate; I can hear each letter’s effort, the work to shape it with his tongue.  Placing vegetable on cutting board, I turn toward him, leaning to see […]