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 […]
marriage
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 […]
Camping in the Rubble
A cyclone threatened. We knew the devastation it would leave in its wake would be enormous. As it began, we had no idea what the consequential damage would be, but we knew that it could not be stopped, and we had to wait until it had blown through before we’d know whether repair was going to be […]
The Delicate Task
I watched his hands, a gentle blend of weary Each line, earned, every callous worn like a medal of honor The request, brave and earnest His response breathed through his fingertips, whispers waft and billow Through the labor of his hands His yes, a gift of patient, steady love I look away, the chore […]