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Rooted Through Our Identity as Makers
In season three of the History Channel show Alone, contestant Zachary Fowler kept his hands and mind busy by creating all sorts of unique items saying, “I’m a maker; that’s just who I am.” After watching, my oldest daughter took to saying proudly, after a difficult diagnosis, “I may have Celiac, but God made me a…
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Romance, after 15 years
“Compatibility is an achievement of love; it shouldn’t be its precondition.” -Alain de Batton // “Your dreams, what you hope for and all that, are not separate from your life. It grows right up out of it.” -Barbara Kingsolver // I suppose one of the lovely realities about marrying young is that Ben and I…
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Grace for the Busy Season
There’s a hint of pink in my cheeks as I write this title. Wasn’t I just writing about tuning out, and slowing down, and the quiet life? Haven’t I thought abundantly and spoken often against the hurry and busyness that we are so often drawn into? I have been challenged – continuously over the past…
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Advent When I’m Not Feeling It
Sweat dampened the back of my shirt as I held up the upper branches of our very fake, very plastic Christmas tree while my husband tightened the brackets holding the lower branches, which were quite droopy. “Think we can swing one more year out of it?” I ask. “Maybe after Christmas is the time to…
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On Wrestling with Time
My oldest walked out of our family room to join us at the dinner table, and said, “Oh, I don’t think this was supposed to be left on the stove.” Our eyes all went to the stringy, melted mess of plastic she was holding; it was a Fisher Price kitchen pot from my childhood days.…
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Home as a Holy Space
Recently, with winter approaching, I pitched the idea to Ben to open up the long, unused fireplace in our school room. At some point, many years ago, there was a working fireplace in that room, but it was sealed and stacked with shelves where we’ve kept the kids’ toys and puzzles for the past five…
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