“Riley, before I met you, I was all alone,” Josh says gently, his voice a quiet trumpet. He stands in the middle of our Baltimore hotel room, gesturing toward her with one hand clawed around a balled-up t-shirt.  The thought has made him pause in his packing, as though it must be acknowledged before he […]

The same day that I sit in the hammock chair on the porch reading Ezekiel, my bare toes curled and hardly touching the wood planks of the floor, my body twisting slowly in the newborn morning, Kevin gently says to me, “I think you need one of those days when you leave your phone on […]

Josh and Riley bend over the island in the kitchen, a wedding planner splayed open in front of them.  Riley’s hand bobs over the cover page, where she carefully writes their names, not formally, the way I would have, just Riley and Josh. In truth, almost everything about this is different for them than it […]

Josh hands Riley a gift bag, jolly red and green, plump with surprises and spilling over with tissue, and we all sit forward, anticipating grace. All through Advent, I have been thinking:  On the surface of things, at least according to the understanding of their time, Mary and Joseph should never have married.  I’ve been […]

In the middle of the morning, I step back from the window, from that view of heavy clouds and leaves dripping rain like a cleansing grief, and feeling my own vulnerability, I wander down the hall to my husband. I walk in the room and he turns and I step into his arms without saying […]

Kevin and I set out for our walk in the early morning, while the air is crisp and new light glows soft pink. We smile over the volume of the birds, how they chitter and squaw from fence post to power lines to the peaks of the trees, sentinels passing messages. We gesture and smile, […]

My foot sits right next to Kevin’s under the table; I can feel the warmth of him. I glance away from my book, watching the rise and fall of his chest, noticing that he has begun to pray. His peaceful eyes shut out the world. Years into my own relationship with God, I finally understand […]

“Where are you going?” He asks, in a voice muffled with sleep, a voice just on the edge of awareness. My hand stills on the doorknob.  I turn back toward him, not much more than a shadow. “I’m goi–I can’t sleep.”  My voice falls lightly.  “I need to—I don’t want to keep you awake,” I […]

Early evening, and already I feel splintered and scattered and sore from carrying the day.  It has been one of those—the kind of day that wakes me before the sun, pressing into me in the emptied hours, and then sends me chasing time and late for everything; the kind of day in which, right from […]

In the early hours before the sun rises, we rise, and we’re so tired we move around in silence for a while, fumbling to make the bed, pressing back against sleepiness to dress for exercise before we find an excuse.  We’ve tried so hard for intentionality with regard to first things—time with God, time with each […]