“Need to go upstairs,” Adam says, the very minute Kevin mentions that we should play a game together after dinner. We gather around the family table, but Adam feels no compulsion to stay, may in fact find the relational atmosphere a bit overwhelming.  When we ask him questions during the meal, Adam puts down his […]

I stand on my tiptoes a little now to brush Adam’s teeth, reminding myself not to hum aloud the thread of praise weaving through my thoughts because Adam will feel as though, while he’s already telling me it’s time to finish with his teeth, he must also ask me to stop humming, please, because the […]

“I’m concerned about Adam’s schedule for the summer,” Riley says to me, folding her hands in front of her and digging one toe into the outdoor carpet on our back porch. The hinges of the door haven’t yet stopped screeching, and a great wind rustles the leaves of the trees, and I take a deep […]

At some moment toward the end of every sweet vacation–this time while cool, briny waters lick at my feet and the sun warms my bare shoulders; while I meander along and consider that the ocean looks both a clear, clean green in the rise of the waves and like quicksilver on the surface—I begin to […]

In our house, we have learned to keep time this way, in days since the last seizure, but this is not something we carry along, not at all like some battered suitcase stuffed with all our worries and dragged along behind, but rather something acknowledged and touched by our hands and burned in the pasture, […]

“But, I’m not a baby,” the boy says, looking at up at me petulantly, with dark, bottomless eyes, his lips pursed in a pout.  “I’m eight.” Suddenly, I remember the voice of Jesus, calling us all his little children, even though some of us like to think we’re adults. I had called the boy Joshua […]

Home from wrestling the road and picking up my young adults, I take up the work where I left off, affixing congratulatory labels to some cookie bags I’m assembling for the kids who will transition out of our children’s worship group to another grade level this Sunday.  The bundles are love and sweet and joy, […]

I am a stiff-necked woman. I smile as I think it, laying in the floor on an exercise mat that has seen better days, head on a folded beach towel I grabbed from the closet.  I count dust bunnies peeking out from their warrens—deep under the TV cabinet, beneath a wild tangle of electrical cords, […]

“How was your day?” I ask Riley as she slides into the car after work, and what I really mean is how were the last few hours, and what astounds me when I ask is that, as usual, she seems as peaceful as the ocean at low tide, still, like glass. “Work was amazing,” she […]

In our living room, Josh and Riley stand side-by-side, she, with her hair yanked up in a high ponytail, yanked, like she suddenly does when her mind can’t be distracted by something like errant strands of hair tickling her cheeks, and he, with his face completely open, ready and waiting for whatever I introduce.  They […]