241Nov 4, 2011
May your unfailing love be my comfort…(Psalm 119:76) Last night, they sat in the chair together, a boy and his dad. Â For years, Kevin’s lap has been the place where Adam finds the most comfort. Â In his most terrible moments, when he cries so hard he gasps for air, this is the place he remembers […]
242Oct 21, 2011
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. Â Transformation is something we are passionate about, knowing it to be God’s skill, His masterpiece. Â He’s woven […]
243Sep 9, 2011
The Cloud has lifted, and God is on the move. Â 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.” […]
244Aug 26, 2011
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. Â Right now, we focus on three jobs—emptying trash cans, […]
245Aug 5, 2011
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 […]
246Jul 22, 2011
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 […]
247Jul 1, 2011
We’re sitting in a circle, you and I, with half a dozen other people we love. Â 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 […]
248Jun 26, 2011
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 […]
249Jun 24, 2011
This morning, Adam couldn’t find his favorite math worksheet. “Three Steps?” he said to me, his face a few inches from mine, his body leaning in to where I sat sipping my coffee on the porch. Adam and I had communicated enough about Three Steps in the last week for me to know (finally) that this […]
250Jun 10, 2011
Last weekend, Adam went camping with his dad for the first time. Â And the most wonderful thing happened: he had a blast. Living with autism, there are things we parents just get used to not being able to do with our children. Â We stand in groups of parents who are chattering about all the things […]