She comes to find me and starts the conversation casually, pulling her hair back with one hand, letting it fall.  The soft blonde strands, deepening now to brown, float out around her face, slide down along the edges of her cheeks.  Her eyes are wells, stronger and more serious at times than her years.  Her […]

Source: healthyfitandtoned.tumblr.com via Elysa on Pinterest Won’t you come and run with me?  The skies are blue, the sun warm and guilding life with gold, the road open with possibility. I am a runner.  And it teaches. And I’m not trying to be dramatic about it, but the truth is this:  I never believed I […]

Thursday morning, and it hits me. The tears unexpected, I turn the corner into our neighborhood, thankful I’ve made it well beyond the place where I left my kids before the emotion rolls over me in waves, making me gasp. Sometimes it happens that way. I’m going on about my day, and then I see […]

Do not believe that I have mastered contentment. I pursue it…ruthlessly.  But just as I feel it graze my fingertips, it disappears, the butterfly I cannot catch, dancing just nearby. Do you struggle, like me?  Blessed beyond what you can believe and yet still somehow allowing the ridiculous sigh from your lips?  I count gifts, […]

I have this thing about white lights in Winter. For a few lingering weeks, after the Christmas decorations have been packed away for another year, white lights will still flicker and blink warm here, winking at me, reminding me that the magic is always, not just for a season.  Here and there, a bit of […]

2 days before Christmas, and Kevin and I walk early—a treat, Mom and Dad here, the kids snuggling with them in the dark.  The breeze feels amazing, blowing in our faces, a reminder of the Spirit walking with us.  Tears drip down my cheeks, renewing my eyes, even though I’m not crying.  And I can’t […]

This is the first year that Adam has been able to tell me what he wants for Christmas.  Just a few weeks ago, I stood in the kitchen wrapping my arms around my nine year old son, who laughed but squirmed with discomfort.  I kissed him on the cheek and smiled into bright blue eyes […]

“But…I don’t want to be fat.” That’s what Zoe said to me, months ago, her diabetes yet undiagnosed, her body slowly consuming itself.  I looked at her, sitting there at the breakfast table picking at a piece of toast, and I thought, “I wonder when I started thinking that way.” By then, her bones had […]

You say grace before meals./All right. / But I say grace before the play and the opera, /And grace before the concert and the pantomime, /And grace before I open a book, /And grace before sketching, painting,/ Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing,/And grace before I dip the pen in the ink (~G.K. Chesterson, as […]

May your unfailing love be my comfort…(Psalm 119:76) Last night, they sat in the chair together, a boy and his dad.  For years, Kevin’s lap has been the place where Adam finds the most comfort.  In his most terrible moments, when he cries so hard he gasps for air, this is the place he remembers […]