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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

Just when the caterpillar thought his life had ended, he became a butterfly. ~Proverb For days, we stare at the five chrysalides hanging from the top of the butterfly habitat Zoe requested for her birthday, anticipating new birth.  Transformation is something we are passionate about, knowing it to be God’s skill, His masterpiece.  He’s woven […]

The Cloud has lifted, and God is on the move.  He’s taking me somewhere new, and I’ve heard Him. Go. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” […]

It’s funny how one word can mean such different things. In the afternoons, Adam learns to clean the house, my hand gesturing to a trash can he’s to empty or resting over his own, showing him the right way to hold a can of Scrubbing Bubbles.  Right now, we focus on three jobs—emptying trash cans, […]

Aggravation is Riley’s favorite game, but not for the reasons you might expect.  She plays by a few simple rules, and Sunday, God wrote them on our hearts: It’s really important that we play all together. When Kevin played Aggravation years ago, on this very same board, with his younger brother and his grandparents, he had all those […]

I see God everywhere on the coast.  I talk to Him, standing at the water’s edge watching, listening, feeling.  “You gather all this into jars (Psalm 33:7).  You alone rule over the surging sea (Psalm 89:9)… The seas have lifted up, LORD, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding […]

We’re sitting in a circle, you and I, with half a dozen other people we love.  It’s late at night, past the hour when everyone started yawning, past the time when we all ambled into the kitchen looking for snacks, all the way past pitch dark and silence to that hour when the world seems […]

A few Sundays ago, Kevin led the thoughts before the communion in worship.  I missed the public presentation because I was in the nursery singing Jesus Loves Me to a few beautiful toddlers, but Kevin had shared it with me the night before.  These thoughts, given by the Spirit, brought both of us to tears.  I […]