This auditorium has different lines than the one in which we usually worship.  Pews make up the rows instead of the moveable interlocking chairs with which we’re so familiar, and something makes the room feel broad.  The moment we push quietly in, there’s the impression of red velvet, though the seating arrangment feels spacious and […]

In the middle of the afternoon, when the sun burns so hot we can almost see the scorching heat and the grass curls brown and crackles beneath our bare feet, we eat peaches that taste of sunshine.  The sticky juice runs down our chins.  We spoon up blueberries dripping with sweet milk and push out […]

Well okay, not just the holidays.  I can’t ignore the resounding, soul-altering Comment:  This is not just for now. We linger, just souls pouring, and in those moments, walls fall.  The thunderous quake, the crashing of ugly pretense pushed down, is something I feel, something that shakes Heaven maybe, while here, our voices softly offer […]

Morning comes and we hear the sound of the ocean, the crash of waves. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that sound,” Kevin says, fresh from sleep.    Almost all week, we’ve kept the door open to hear the sea, and I keep listening to the Spirit reminding me that the voice of […]

Lay it down.  That’s what you do. You press it in His hands hard the first moment you smell the rain.  Don’t wait to surrender it. Cover yourself good, wrap up with Him, spend more time there, instead of less. Lay it down right then, and ask the people who love you to stand with […]

“Mom, I need you to pray with me about something.” It’s the first thing she says to me—she who is both daughter and sister by grace, she standing framed by the car window, the afternoon sun making her hair all blazing light.  The breeze rushes in, stealing the heat. I smile, nodding.  “Okay.  What shall […]

Adam had been talking about this trip for a week–father and son, side-by-side in a pick-up truck, on their way to the beach. To say that Adam has been talking about anything just makes me smile, because nothing sounds as sweet as his voice, nor does anything touch us quite like his earnest efforts to […]

Five o’clock on the beach, and the light falls soft and golden on our shoulders. It doesn’t escape me that on normal days, this hour finds me weary and pushing through, juggling homework and dinner and a thousand other things, counting the moments until I can sit down.  Usually around five I can feel the […]

Morning quiet, the day all new, and as Kevin and I sit eating breakfast in small savored bites, sipping coffee hot and steaming, Adam comes, carrying his notebook. He lays it out purposefully on the table next to Kevin’s place, spreading flat the pages of favorite finished worksheets, pressing his finger into the paper, pointing […]

I’m back from a run, my pulse still elevated, sweat dripping. “Mom?  You’re sweaty.” Riley’s voice rises from the living room, where she sits waiting on me, her pencil moving over a workbook in her lap.  Before I leave, every run, she asks me where I’ll be running, rehearses the steps with me street by […]