Merry Christmas from our family to you and yours! Each time you read these posts, you give me a gift of grace, and for that I am so grateful.  I always pray that you’ll be blessed by something you find here.  As a family, we pray that today you–whoever and wherever you are–feel blessed and […]

He lifts his arm in my direction and stretches at the same time, poised with two bottles of nail polish in his hand—sparkly red and day glow orange.  The other arm reaches up, up as Adam yawns.  He does not want to be here, and at least he’s honest about it. “Who’s that for?” I ask, […]

This is such a crazy time, isn’t it?! In the end, it is something in every way tiny–a broken hairband, actually, popping and snapping against my fingers–that finally breaks my resolve.  It’s always that way with a slow crumble.  Millions of rips–unseen, unheard, unhealed–weaken the muscle until finally the barest graze finishes the work. I stand behind […]

She walks in just as I slide my weary bones down into the water, just as the steam curls up over my knees and I give thanks for simple pleasures I know full well that some do without—hot, clean water flowing by the gallons at the twist of a knob; sweet-smelling soap. Hi, she says […]

She apologizes to Kevin like we autism mamas do, ignoring the sharp, slicing pain it brings just to say the words. I’m sorry, my daughter–she has autism.  She doesn’t mean nothing by it.   She says this gesturing over something Kevin barely noticed, a failure to say hello, a back turned, a little stumble over […]

So many times this week I’ve whispered the words—running under stunning blue skies; exhaling beside grassy spaces where dewey spider webs glow like hundreds of silver threaded veils seemingly abandoned by impetuos ethereal brides; in the dying light of the afternoon, when the work still stretches, teasing at the edges of impossible.  I say it […]

Quiet in the kitchen, except for the sound of my fingers skooshing through flour and egg, sugar, spices; soft-thumping against the sides of the stainless bowl.  These cookies only come together by touch.  They resist the spoon.  Fall comes, and it smells of cinnamon and clove, candied ginger minced fine under the shiny, sharp edge of […]

It only takes a moment for things to crumble. At day’s end, twilight throws last rosy beams across the kitchen table, lighting up flecks of glitter melted into the clear coat years ago during some school project, making Riley’s golden flyaways shine like a gossamer crown faintly visible on her forehead.  She has just finished […]

I walk in from my sweaty work, the pruning shears heavy in one gloved hand, the bottoms of my bare feet stinging with the heat of the sidewalk, the brick steps. Finally, I couldn’t watch the ruined blooms weigh the branches any longer, nor let them continue leaching away the sweet goodness the tiny, emergent […]

Stinging words curl through the grapevine like searing smoke, and I gasp, suffocating.  I am distracted by a black storm, by the flicking tongue of a squint-eyed snake bent on spreading its own dark poison.  The deception threatens the fixing of my eyes.  Except. Except that God is my Father.  And He hasn’t left me […]