The past two months my family and I walked a slim line and close shave to some harrowing past circumstances and decisions. It was all the sudden the same and completely different, renewed. It was scary and exciting. I didn’t know how or where to begin to write to you all. “Traveling mercies” can be like the gift of twilight, no other time of day like it, stillness shattering through the.. Read More
Friends, How to capture the essence of the largeness of the tiniest details that completely reinvent our days is sometimes—beyond words. I’m writing to you from a different state, address and perspective than I last wrote. This past month, in my mind I’ve written you a hundred thoughts. My hands, however, have been a wee preoccupied; working to unpack, and recreate the warmth of “home” for my family of eight. Today,.. Read More
When I was giving a lesson on the birds and bees before 7:30 Monday morning it should have occurred to me: this week would be akin to a scab being torn off involuntarily. But it didnt really. Maybe the next morning should have done it for me when I was crawling…more like prowling, on the bathroom floor around 6 a.m. lunging after a bug that had disturbed my youngest son’s.. Read More
The littlest was howling. He hurt his knee. He came running. Tucking himself next to me, he took my long skirt and draped it over his wound, holding it tight. Eyes closed tight too, unaware how he was warming my heart, he cuddled into my lap. That kind of smile that comes from deep down broke out all over my tired face. It comforted me that I could comfort him, even with.. Read More
I’ve been searching fierce for beauty for weeks now. Physically, halting for poetry and photo-taking of the dogwood trees. Drinking tea in the afternoon and listening to stories, watercoloring with my budding artists and stopping, to listen: this was my search party. My war-cry looked like words spilling out the poems that fill me up in the journals. I’ve been listening to the quiet and the breeze. I heard the.. Read More
I have often made the mistake in my thinking and operating as a mom that if I am not doing it “perfectly” then I am not doing well enough. The other day I sat around the table with my kids, after a previously sad day. I could feel we were all still on the mend. The day before one of my children just flat out decided there was something he.. Read More
We travel places. Sometimes we realize where we are, really are. Sometimes we’re looking ourselves straight in the eyes, in a mirror before us, and all we see is mud. I wish I knew so many muddy days and years ago that I wasn’t seeing as unclearly as I thought. Muddy seemed wrong. I forgot how He had made me out of dirt and breath. I forgot how the story.. Read More
It’s the eve before my 37th birthday as I write this and my husband wants to know if there is anything I want to get out and do before the new day dawns and I’m older. Any spontaneous hurrah before it’s too late? He’s teasing but he’ll do it if I ask—he’s a good guy. And, yeah, well, there is something…but I just did it. Or better said, I just experienced it… Read More
Do not be afraid of a life of sacrifice… I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts then there is no hurt, only more love. — Mother Teresa Funny, Not Funny Faithfulness is a funny word to try to wrap our minds around and then at times, not very funny at all. Like the faithfulness of newborn baby diaper “blow-outs”. Whew, I mean, I was laughing.. Read More
I was wrestling with a seemingly impossible barrier in my heart as I tried to sleep one night when somewhere between sleep and wake I saw the words I AM. My mind’s eye followed the image and watched the letters burn off in flame, yet remain. Within moments and breaths, and without fully knowing how or when, the barrier had fallen. Within the name, I AM, I finally understood the answer to.. Read More