Hope

Healing for a Broken Heart

…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. (C.S. Lewis)   I experienced the impossible in the twilight of a morning. […]

How Sweet the Sound

A box sits in the corner of the fellowship hall at church – a milk crate labeled with a laminated page that reads “Lost and Found”. The box overflows with forgotten things gathering dust. Every once in a while someone will empty the contents onto a table with the vain hope that the sippy cups, […]

The Growing Uncomfortable Edge

I am untethered, unmoored, unrecognizable to myself. My husband passed away in a hiking accident, and life is altered on every level.  I feel disoriented, trying to make sense of my disassembled life—like lying on the couch and watching TV sideways.  Everything has changed, and my brain has yet to catch up to it all. […]

People Made of Light

I am the easiest one in the room to take for granted.  This gives me peace. I can explain. Like every human, mongoose, and senator, I was born with a box of tangled bulbs. Some light up every time: preference for the underdog, devotion to the elderly, proficiency at remembering the names of Tolkien’s elves.  […]

A Lost Heart Finds Home

I’m a very sensitive person, indeed, I’ve often been told I am too sensitive, over sensitive. That I feel things too deeply. I don’t believe that’s true or even makes sense. I am empathic and I see this as a good thing, even though it can be very painful. I can imagine how another person […]

Welcome to the Invisible Church

Listen to Nichole read her piece by clicking below: “The best church conversations,” she messaged, “happen in the halls—while the sermon’s going on.” I smiled as this surfaced in a text thread with Sarah Guerrero (watch for her piece later this month). She’s not wrong. This isn’t to discount the “goings on” inside. Worship leaders, […]

Hidden Beauty Revealed

Listen to Prasanta read her piece by clicking here:   Senescent (adjective) growing old; aging. Cell Biology. (of a cell) no longer capable of dividing but still alive and metabolically active.   As in: trees laughing leaves, dropping down on me, floating in the wind. I catch a handful of laughter, toss it back in the air.   […]

Wrestling with God

You’re limping, people say as I approach with my irregular gait.  Oh yes, I answer. I have been wrestling with God.   Wrestling with lost relationships. Wrestling with grief that keeps arising. Wrestling with change in my dwelling places. Wrestling with shifting family dynamics. Wrestling with changes in my body as I age. Wrestling with […]

Companions in the Darkness

Editor’s Note: Holding a conversation with Diana Gruver is like sitting in the sun: She radiates kindness and compassion in a way that makes you want to lean in and steal as many moments in her presence as possible. It may seem surprising, then, to hear her story—of how she, herself, “clawed toward the light” […]

Whispers from the Side Door

Listen to Nichole Woo read this anonymous piece by clicking below.   She scuffs over sidewalks toward heavy high school doors, (always locked) with dauntless steps that prick my heart. One thing I know: Her feet will forever fall on roads in want of wear.1 Frost – he got to choose. But not my girl. […]

Because of You

  Because of you, I yearn to be alive.Because of you, ‘till death (you) must realize.In my heart I know there is only you.And ask my heart, you’ll know that this is true. Ang hirap at pasakit, ng pusong umiibig (Tagalog): The pain and sorrows from love arise Each time I say goodbye to my […]

Will We Weep?

One clings to a flagpole. The other wades in a cistern’s mire. She, a black activist in South Carolina. He, a Jewish prophet from Jerusalem. Bree Newsome Bass climbs thirty feet from the ground. Jeremiah wallows almost as many below it. To Grieve is to Anguish, over nations who turn from God to idols of […]

The Mathematics of Life

“I just wanted you to know I hear you. I see you.” I received this voice message from a friend in response to a long, rambling complaint I sent the day before.  “In walking with people through grief and loss, I’ve recognized how powerless I am to rescue anyone, said Aubrey Sampson. “And I’ve been […]

The Good Catastrophe

  And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting […]

The Tree Near the Side of the Road

I am learning about perspective in my oil painting class. Usually I rush into a painting, excited to get it started. But in this particular photograph of a tree near the side of road, my teacher encouraged me to keep proper perspective in the underpainting. To project accurate perspective, the elements must line up correctly […]

Troubled Waters

Have you heard the one about Sisyphus and his rock? Me either . . . “Who?” I queried my kids, as it surfaced between Minecraft lore and stupid memes. “The boulder guy,” answered one. “You didn’t learn that in school, either, mom?” followed the other, baffled by my “1900’s” deficiency. So I compensated with indulged […]