“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~ Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV) […]
Parenting
Mom, I’m Pregnant
On my way to a doctor’s appointment this morning, I grabbed Starbucks and then delivered a frappuccino to my daughter. As soon as my hands were empty, I picked up my grandson and smothered him with snuggles. We smiled at each other and laughed. I talked gibberish to him and I am pretty sure he […]
Authentic Living is Hard
You know I am from the Midwest because when you ask me how I am, I answer you. This is, as my children’s minister pointed out to me, a trait I have passed on to my girls. Lucky for the Norman girls, she finds us charming. Don’t ask us how we are if you don’t […]
When Loss Messes With Your Faith
We were going to wait seven years before having children. I thought we agreed on five. “No, seven,” my husband insists.Three years into marriage I suddenly developed a ferocious longing for a baby. It took a year to convince my husband and another 12 months to conceive. But the little white pill worked the first […]
Losing Us and Finding Us as Lovers
There is a loss that presses hard on my chest some days, the days when I look out over hills, or a certain slant of light catches me just so, or the way a musty book opened now smells just like the PR and PS books in that old Scottish library and I’m right back […]
Through Seasons of Motherhood
My baby girl will be three in October. She’s into Pixar movies and puzzles and loves singing “Amazing Grace” with her pretend microphone. She’s mostly introverted. She’s already a Type A, and she’s growing more independent every day. She’s becoming a little lady right before my eyes, and it makes me weepy to see how […]
Riding the Grief Wave
My hand grabs a heavy plastic bag as I reach to the very back of the closet. I couldn’t place it at first, and then my heart wrenches when I see the blue sweater. Justin’s sweater, and a blue polo shirt that I had carefully saved from his belongings. His sweet scent and the faint […]
Some Clear Joy is Coming
TRIGGER WARNING: Description of miscarriage. *Portions of the second half of this post are from a piece written shortly after the event. Father John in the driveway comes here to bless me. My Father in the morning will bend to hear me. Some clear joy is coming on some slowest train, I am […]
I’m the Only One. But I’m Staying.
I spent my summers hopscotching through neighborhood Vacation Bible Schools. VBS, as an inner-city kid was the closest I ever got to attending a traditional camp. Who needed a lake to swim in when there were water balloons by the buckets in the church lawn to splash through. I never felt deprived of mountain trail […]
When Your Heart is Yearning For a Better Father
I don’t talk to my father very often. On Father’s Day I consider the choices. To send a card? Or not? Should I lean into the wound? Or get myself out clean? Is it time to press into the brokenness of relationship? Or it is time to gather myself and walk away? There isn’t […]
For Those Who Love Jesus, but . . .
I didn’t mean to stay for three hours. And it was more than the rose leaf tea, more than the endless Super Why episodes she put on for my three-year-old. It was more than the familiar story of young love and marriage, or the moment we both confessed that our moms are our best friends […]
Love is in a Midnight-Blue Towel
They lie next to each other, on our bathroom rail, one grass-green, one midnight blue. They are the same Egyptian cotton towels we were given for our wedding, fifteen years ago. At the time, as I recall, I thought them outrageously expensive, yet they are still here, fifteen years on. Every day, I take […]
To the Pastors’ Wives Whose Marriages are Quietly Falling Apart
I’m a pastor’s wife.* And sister, I know how it is. You smile for the family pictures. You corral your children Sunday after Sunday; just getting out the door in time for church feels like you’ve already run a marathon. Maybe you, like me, can feel resentment for this life bubble up now and […]
To Be Married
For someone who has been telling the internet all the things about all the things for the last few years there is one thing that doesn’t get a lot of press: my marriage. It isn’t that I haven’t tried. Like I write my girls a letter every year on their birthdays, I have wished to, […]
Community: Slamming Doors and Kitchen Messes
I was 19 and had nowhere to go. I had been couch surfing for nearly a year and was running out of options. A friend and I had talked about going out to Chicago to check out a Christian community known for its ministry to lost hippies and punks and the homeless, as well as […]
I’m Not Going to Preach About Josh Duggar
I am not going to preach today about Josh Duggar and the TLC show 19 Kids and Counting. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. We’re all too addicted to these stories, of how the famous rise and fall. We have too much invested, in their fame in the first place, and then the […]
The Parable of the Exploding Ketchup
We pulled out of the zoo and immediately they started asking for more. “Can we go out for Ice cream?!” “Can we go out for dinner?!” “Oh please Mom! Oh please!” We’d just spent hours traipsing around the zoo, petting the wallabies, climbing the wooden train and tracking down the tigers. We weren’t there for […]
What I Learned From an Everyday Wednesday
Emily Freeman taught me to listen to my Tuesdays. Mine showed up a day late. It was an everyday Wednesday. I stood, feet askew, stirring the carnitas in my red dutch oven for our friends coming over for lunch that day, like they do every week. There was a pause as my husband passed by, […]