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A November Walk
The great trees groan, their woody trunks contracting in the cold. Looking up, gray cloud cover blankets the sky. The wind tosses a dried, fallen leaf, rustling on the path before my feet. I pause and listen – pure stillness. The flakes of the first snow land tenderly on my face, lifted slightly toward toward…
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Still Packing
(Originally written in August, 2025. We are now settled into a new home – more on that soon.) It’s sticky in my parents’ garage where my daughter and I are labeling boxes, taping them shut, stacking them up. We’ve been packing, and packing, and repacking, for over three months now. “This is the last time,…
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This Could Be Good
(Originally published at ALifeOverseas.com, on May 22, 2025.) It’s our turn: our family is transitioning back to our home country in the next two months, and I find myself looking for success stories. Or at least transition stories that have threads of hope. There are a great many stories about how difficult, traumatic, and disorienting…
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Time Flies Away
“But now I am six and as clever as clever – I think I’ll stay six forever and ever!” My youngest daughter chanted at me one recent morning with a smile lighting her whole face. For a fleeting second, I wished that could be true. Could I keep her six forever and ever? For me,…
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What the Psalms Have Taught Me About Safety
In the summer of 2008, I spent two months in Pakistan. My time was focused on discipleship, through training teachers at a local Christian girls’ school in English and leading Bible studies among nurses at a local hospital, primarily. When I first arrived on a muggy Sunday morning and was retrieved by the airport by…
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When Home is not Homey
After a long, 42-hour trip with my two youngest, after yet another delay Stateside (this time we can all blame the same thing, no?), after grappling with the grief of leaving yet again, I climbed out of the car, and stepped through the door into my home – to find it smelled, felt more cramped…
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