grow

  • 50 Things I’ve Learned Before 50

    50 Things I’ve Learned Before 50

    You can read the same thing every year and gain something different each time because of your own growing soul and experience. Be the gatekeeper of your own mind – choose good things to look at, listen to, and watch. We’re told to follow our dreams, but dreams can be gauzy and overwhelming.  Instead, follow your…

  • Let’s Talk About Lent – Raised Catholic episode 10

    Let’s Talk About Lent – Raised Catholic episode 10

    The following is a transcript from the Raised Catholic podcast. To listen to the podcast, click here. Today is episode 10: Let’s Talk About Lent Well, hello friends. As I’m recording today’s podcast, we are just about one week into Lent of 2021 and I have some thoughts. I bet you do, too. Because of…

  • Bulb

    Bulb

    A friend dropped off a large amaryllis bulb in a pretty turquoise pot just before Christmas. As we stood masked in my driveway that day and he handed me the heavy gift bag, there’s no way he could have known the true weight and value of the gift he was giving me.  More likely, his wife,…

  • Mantle – 2021

    Mantle – 2021

    Each year between Christmas and New Year’s, I lean in close to discover my word for the year ahead. Last year a scripture caught hold of me hard and I thought for sure that my word was embedded within it.  It was Isaiah 43:19, and I scribbled it on an index card and affixed it to…

  • Phlox

    Phlox

    I am astounded by phlox.  You know, the tiny little perennial flower that pops up in bright pink, purple, and white this time of year on hillsides and rock walls.  We planted a couple of small bits on our patio around some larger planters four or five years ago and each year it comes back…

  • Bean

    Bean

    Oh friends, watch this bean. It was dead, basically, the by-product of an earlier productive and blossoming life.  Found itself dried out and useless, buried in the quiet and the dark.  It stayed like that for a long time. Then something within itself started breaking and shifting.  Preprogrammed for growth, it sent out roots and…

  • Cultivate

    Cultivate

    I’ve participated in the #oneword365 project for a couple of years now. It’s a pretty simple exercise; you prayerfully pick a word that might help define the year, and then allow it to lead you into new growth in the year ahead. It works. In 2017, I was continually reminded that if things weren’t as…

  • Keeper

    Keeper

    As I settled into my seat at the annual gratitude mass for a large area charity, I shook my head in wonder. There were hundreds of people at the mass, and it had taken us quite a while to sit, there were so many people to hug. We’ve been a part of this place since…

  • Spring

    Spring

    If you live where I live, you’re seeing everything in bloom.   In my tiny yard alone: forsythia, tulips, hosta, dogwood, phlox, azalea, and even dandelions. In my neighborhood, baby leaves are peeping out and growing more with each day, making a welcome canopy of sunlit apple green overhead. And everyone is smiling: all of this…

  • All Along

    All Along

    Last October, I planted four tulip bulbs along my front rock wall because I needed to see how God could bring new life from something that looked dry and dead. It’s been a long winter. We’ve had wind and icy rain, broken branches and uprooted trees, and a good amount of snow. Some days I…