I do not write in love if I do not write this clearly, and with all the urgency I feel: Jesus Christ, the Lamb Slain, the One Raised, the Word made Flesh, the Lord—the One and Only—He reshapes me. And He’s coming back. It will happen in the blink of an eye, but it will […]

There’s really only one place to start, only one space for the dying of seed, the breaking of ground. I stand in her doorway–just for a breath, my hand on the door frame, watching light cast aside shadows.  She rests, still cocooned, all possibility swathed in quilted blossoms.  I whisper thanks and ask for protection, […]

Motherhood is an emptying. And the pouring out, with all it’s awkward splats and splashes, really starts the day God drops the seed of a child, planting a soul in our most cavernous places, claiming the soil of us for His own harvest.  The latching on of new life breaks walls, bruises tissue, draws blood. […]

Thirteen years ago, God wrote it loud, carved it deep in the walls of our hearts: It doesn’t matter what makes sense. And because He knows I need things repeated, not quite two years later He traced over the words again, and the letters were block-shaped and quick.  He added this: And it doesn’t matter […]

Mom, come look. She says it breathlessly, wiping sweat and wild hair from her forehead with her hand. I stand at the sink, washing my hands with the honeysuckle soap, preparing to chop onions for our supper. “Come look at what?” I ask, drying my hands on a towel.  I reach in the cabinet for […]

Over lunch, we talk of how we first imagined ourselves as mothers, smiling down at our fingers. I’ve always longed to be the Proverbs 31 woman.  She is clothed with strength and dignity, Word says.  She can laugh at the days to come.  I don’t know, but somehow the unmanicured edges of my fingernails seem […]

Source: trendingfitnessblog.com via Elysa on Pinterest She doesn’t know me, so I say it without hesitation, handing her a tissue: Just…punch today in the face. Maybe it seems like an odd thing to say in an elevator, after she’s pushed the down and turned to me, tears still marking up her cheeks, after she’s crumbled a […]

She’s afraid she’ll wake up and I’ll be forever gone, that the darkness will steal me away from her. We sit together all curled up, watching something on TV.  I absently stroke her hair with my fingers, gently nudging out the tangles, and she tries to move closer, to squeeze out all the space between […]

I do not know all the things she has suffered. But when she comes to the door, looking empty, I think of something Mother Theresa once said about seeing Christ in His most distressing disguises.  I look in her face, and I see Christ.  And I wonder, Can she see Him now, as she looks […]

The morning rushes from the start.  Light, cold and sterling, glowing fresh, bleeds through the curtains.  We swing our legs toward the chill, gathering hope, tucking promises deep. In the first moments of waking, we dress for battle.  The sword flashes, Powerful Word cutting away and shaping new, and we whisper prayers, and we get […]