What I Want Them to Remember

Their nightstand and bookshelves tell you all you’d need to know. Anne of Green Gables, Ramona, Laura Ingalls Wilder. We have Girls Think of Everything, Rosie Revere Engineer, Not One Damsel in Distress. Harriet Tubman. Helen Keller. Sojourner Truth. Marie Curie. These are their heroes. We go through our Bible with care and find all […]

Holding My Words

“I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” Joan Didion   Tonight I get to write in a quiet house. I can’t remember the last time this occurred. There are seven of us living in this house, ranging in age from six to eighty-five. There are days there are so many words […]

Sound the Bells

Can I not talk about the Enneagram? Please? I’ve taken the test what feels like a hundred times. Each time I have taken it with the guidance of someone who really knows and loves the Enneagram. First I thought I was a 9. That fit for a while until it didn’t. Try again and find […]

There is Enough

One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of Elisha and the widow. For those not familiar with it, Elijah, while visiting a land in the midst of a drought, stops at the home of a widow and asks her not only for water, but for a piece of bread. He is thirsty and he […]

When Contentment Numbs

It’s been a beautiful fall. Using the word beautiful is insufficient, but when the sun shines bright through the trees, lighting the day with golden drops that float magically in the air and the weather in Chicago hovers in the mid-sixties, that description is all I have.  Contentment is hard fought and so this bit […]

Forty Three Steps

I didn’t want to see it again. I was quite happy letting my husband be the one who would let in the occasional handyman, plumber, or real estate agent. But this time, there were no other options, so it was me walking the 43 steps to the third floor of the vintage building where we […]

I’ll Carry You

I told a story last week about how God was teaching me to trust on an ordinary weekday morning watching a swim lesson, but I didn’t give it the ending I wanted. I wanted to say how I knew it would all be okay, how I was ready to jump. I have been following Jesus […]

All You Need to Do Is Jump

Each morning, for the past five weeks, I get my three daughters up at 7am for their swim lessons. Bleary eyed they change into their swimsuits, grab a change of clothes, and eat a protein bar on the thirty-minute drive to the pool where they take lessons. All week they look forward to “Friday Fun […]

The Spiritual Practice of Protest

We received the news not so long ago; a potential; 39% cut across the board, not counting huge sums already lost this year. 1.1 million for one school, 1.8 million for the other. The devastation coming for these schools is frightening, so when I saw the note telling us buses were loading up parents to […]

Half A Lifetime Ago

  Half a lifetime ago. That’s what I realized as I was driving down the road, sunroof open, on one of the first warm spring days of the year. Before I was a mom, before I was a wife, I was just me. I worked in retail and would find myself driving the 45 minutes […]

The Call to Let Go

Focused. I was moving up and down the aisles of Home Depot as quickly as I could. It was almost 1pm and the girls were hungry. My husband had my 2 year old, blonde curls surrounding her rounded face, and I had the squishy infant, nestled in the Ergo, head resting on my chest, waiting […]

The Morning After

Today’s Free Write Friday is a simple reflection from some of our readers on Super Tuesday results. As I collected these, I was encouraged as I witnessed discourse – not fighting, but actual discourse – as they wrestled with results and candidates and beliefs, everyone holding onto hope. I. “Bite your lip and turn on […]

Hope Trumps Death

I held her hand in mine as we walked down the snowy sidewalk. On Sunday we were raking and putting out a spring wreath on the front door, the one with the pastel eggs and moss covered rabbit, but just a few days later the streets were ice and snow as a cold wind blows […]