Watching You
I’ve watched you. You smoothing tablecloths across MOPS tables with your kids latched on to a leg or perched on your right hip. You carrying egg bakes in one hand and round-faced, red-cheeked toddlers in the other, welcoming new moms with warm smiles. Photo Credit:Flickr user Elvis Kennedy, under permission of Creative Commons cc license…
Oops, God.
Groggily walking through the kitchen, I buttered three toasts, drizzled honey, and cored apples, quartering them. Photo Credit: Flickr user Amanda Slater, Creative Commons cc license Strapping one blonde-haired nephew into his blue high chair, I watched the two older boys climb into their chairs, cheerfully talking. Hot toast crumbled and steamed on small white…
What Marbles and Ice Slip Significant into our Lives Tonight
“Every year I take one out,” he says. He describes a glass jar of marbles that hulks on a corner of his desk. He is professional, efficient, an accomplished businessman, and his words have stuck in my brain ever since. “I set up the jar, estimated how many years an average person lives, and now…
When Alarms Sound and You Want to Be Brave
Under a torn moon in a black sky, I push my cart. Groceries rattle against rustling paper bags. I’ve been wondering this for several days now. How do we live bravely? That’s my word for the year: Brave. While I don’t think of myself as a fearful person, I’m realizing how often stories of great…
The Surprising Thing about God’s Christmas List
Nutmeg-flecked eggnog rises in sweet slow-moving waves to my tongue. I smile with closed-lips and mull it around my mouth. On this last day of December, our Christmas tree still sparkles red, green, orange, pink, despite olive green rigor mortis setting in. Photo Credit: Flickr user Anne, Creative Commons, cc license You probably saw glimpses…
Finding Joy When You’re Fighting to Stay Afloat
Photo Credit: Carolyn Pinke He’s singing and the echoes bounce off shower walls, YMCA tiles, and slip under door number three to us in the family locker room outside. Daniel’s happiness slides out and over, a cacophony of joy in a bathroom of strangers. The door cracks and he appears, hair wet swirls on his…
God is Not a Cosmic Chastity Belt
Tiny ice balls pelt the windshield and bounce off the car. Sidewalks and roads glisten slick. Three-to-four inches of heavy snow loom in grey clouds overhead, and evening traffic snakes red along the highways and frontage roads. Sirens and ricocheting blue lights careen down dark streets. Photo Credit: Flickr user Paola Kizette Cimenti, Creative Commons…
Unearthing Thanks (and a special Audio for You)
Can you see them? The condensation-dripping plastic ziplock bags hanging from the clean dishes rack. And I’m not sure if it’s just the frugal missionary kid in me that still washes plastic bags, or the trying-to-go-more-green-girl in me who is sad about too many plastic bags floating in the oceans, but nonetheless, three bags hang…
The Chicken and the Egg in a Bedroom of Silk Sheets
I’ve seen the chill creep right up through a marriage — seen it in others and watched it frost up my own. I know firsthand the battle to restore romance, one choice at a time. And while experts are right that hostility shrinks up desire, experts also point out this powerful hope: any relationship can…
The Lie that’ll Ruin Your Sex Life
(This is the second post in the series, Let’s Talk about Sex. The first is here.) Photo Credit: Flickr user Milena Mihaylova, Creative Commons cc license You’ve crept up to me quiet and said it in hushed voices. In conference hallways, outside workshop doors, or pulling me aside at retreats and MOPS groups, you’ve swiped…