To the Women and Daughters Beside You and Me

“This was Anja?”  Photo: Andrew Iverson, Creative Commons, cc license Bouncing jaunty shoulders to big band swing, her blonde curl ringlets dipped and swayed too. In a crowd of several hundred, we gaped in surprise and shook heads in mirthful laughter. Our reserved Finnish high schooler had a larger-than-life dramatic side of her that we…

Read More

The Promise that’ll Change Your Week

Hijacking my attention, I no longer heard his voice as the speaker continued, my thoughts captive by a sentence underlined in stubby pencil on the page. Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simoes, Creative Commons cc, license Sitting on blue upholstered interlocking chairs this Sunday, I read and re-read the verse: God is greater than our hearts, and…

Read More

What God Would Whisper to You Under the Table

We’re learning about “Cuh Cuh cookies” and “Cuh Cuh carving” with the consonant C today, my six year old and I. Reviewing some kindergarten phonics rules, we huddle at the end of the map-topped cherry-wood table, him laboriously tracing C’s and D’s with pencil in stubby fingers, and me sipping coffee and cheering him on.…

Read More

When Paris, America, and Worlds Collide

He’s standing at the window, staring out through falling snow and I can see the worry biting deep into his lip. Shoulders hunched, he leans forehead against the cold third-story glass and peers across the street and down the block. Rising blue and silver in winter twilight, the French high school gazes back at him…

Read More