journey

  • Clock

    Clock

    As the school year winds down and the graduation ceremonies and parties gear up, you hear the same parental refrain: Make Time Stop. And I get it, I felt similar emotions when my oldest was graduating from high school. Then, I was gathering up moments from babyhood through elementary school and beyond and holding them…

  • Pass

    Pass

    My youngest child has just a handful of days left of high school, and I’m finding my reaction to her big milestone quite different from when we walked this road with our son just two years ago. Then, I was in mourning, pulling in every “last” and wringing my hands over how everything was about…

  • Not the Farmer

    Not the Farmer

    I caught myself taking back the things I had given to God to take care of for me, and then I remembered the Farmer. A few days ago, I wrote about how a sweet farmer washing new eggs in the back of a farm store came to represent God for me, how this kind, gentle…

  • Farmer

    Farmer

    I wrote yesterday about the recurrence of egg references throughout my day. I saw a bunch of fresh eggs in the early morning at a local farm, and egg shapes on my yoga mat. I heard a conversation on public radio about the longevity and shelf stability of eggs, and eggs were featured in the…

  • Chutes

    I’ve never been very good at chess. For the same reason I require Google maps to get to places I’ve been a million times before, couldn’t visualize my renovated kitchen until the day it was done, and lost any mastery of math after algebra 2, it’s just not my natural skill set: I can’t see…

  • Hope in Growth Under the Surface – (in)courage

    Hope in Growth Under the Surface – (in)courage

    I’m no gardener, but this past October I planted tulip bulbs in the ground and shared more from the batch with some dear friends. As winter approached, I bought amaryllis bulbs, planted two in pots, and gave away still more. I wasn’t looking for a new hobby, and I don’t revel working in the dirt.…

  • New

    New

    I’ve had some fun New Year’s Eves. When I was a kid, our parents would pre-order Chinese food for our dinner, and I remember with fondness the sticky red-sauced pork and fried rice we ate just once a year. In later years, I remember a fun NYE in a friend’s apartment with super-loud music and…

  • Steps

    Steps

    After a busy couple of days of Christmas church singing, merrymaking, eating, and cleaning, I needed to clear my head, so I bundled up to walk in the sunny but frigid twenty-degree day. Podcast in my ears and eyes to the sky, I headed out. It was an icy, winding path, but the sun was…

  • Ordained

    Ordained

    Late last night, I was reading my kindle next to my sleeping husband when I suddenly felt the presence of God. To me, it feels like a lightness in my chest and an overwhelming peace and awe. I’ve been fortunate to experience this a few times in my life, but, honestly, it had been a…

  • Page

    When I was a child, my faith life was whatever my parents taught me. There was a loving God, and rules, and if you did the right thing, and helped your neighbor, all would be well. If my early-adult life was a house, I would have painted one room ‘religion’, another ‘family’, another ‘work’, another…