I wait through traffic with a prayer on my heart.  Adam sits beside me, bobbing his head in time to the music—what a beautiful Name it is, having dispensed with my pick-up pleasantries about his day with a perfunctory, “Good,” as in, it was good and that’s all there is to say about it.  As […]

While I dice the chicken, one hand gripping the knife, I teach Riley how to make potato salad. “So, what’s the next thing you need to do?” I ask her, nodding toward an armful of a silver bowl piled high with tender chopped potatoes.  Two eggs, hardboiled with the potatoes, peek out from among the […]

Home from carpool, I pull the wet, clean clothes from our washer and toss them, with a shake, into the dryer.  I can hear Riley in the kitchen, her voice bright and morning-new, counting to Christmas.  “Just 18 more,” she says, with enthusiasm, but I push the button on the machine and lose the rest […]

It can feel like I’m stuck in the dark. And it can feel like life’s too loud. I made a centerpiece for our table out of evergreen boughs, a silver wreath accented with bits of mirrored glass, like gems, tall blood red candles, and a few ancient ornaments.  Christmas decorations always need two things, in […]

“Mom, guess what?!” Riley says. From the living room, I can hear the zip as she opens her bookbag, the rattle of papers as she searches. “What?” I ask, somewhat dutifully, being both distracted and also fully familiar with Riley’s enthusiasm for ordinary details. Once, she behaved this way before producing a list of movies […]

Henry Blackaby, in his powerful study Experiencing God, taught me the life-changing difference between joining God where he already works and asking him to work according to my plans.  “We don’t choose what we will do for God,” Blackaby said.  “He invites us to join Him where He wants to involve us.” Riley has shown […]

When Riley cries, she turns red, as though her whole body must make up for any failure to express herself clearly in words. This morning as we walk to the car, her eyes, which were already rimmed an angry color, look pink from the press of her palms as she rubs away her tears. The […]

It can be easy, in a whisper, to thank the gift without thanking the Giver. It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud, but in the evening, sitting cozy while the darkness gathers outside, we admit this to each other. I fold my legs up in the chair, thinking of the way my gratitude sometimes […]

We should give this hour a name, when the afternoon swells like a bruise and we all feel molasses-slow, our faces stretched into unending yawns, and still, we have work to do. I want to pour myself another cup of coffee, but I think I have consumed more than enough caffeine today, and something feels […]

How easy it is to sink to that place where the smallest things we do for love don’t feel like love at all, to that shadowland where we believe wholeheartedly in withholding, where we forget that giving is the means to abundance. Adam sulks over his dinner, flicking his eyes toward me, his look pit-dark. […]