I think about joy in the middle of the night sometimes. I remember when I was memorizing the book of James a couple of years ago, and I got really hung up on that verse in the first chapter, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” because it seems…
Chronic Pain
The Manna is Always There
I have a plastic bin filled with beans hidden in my basement. I packed that bin two years ago when I, like everyone else, worried about food supplies. I’ve borrowed from the bin a little, but if you need rice or dried beans, I’ve got you covered. I also have gallons of water in case…
There Will Be No Burden-Bearing if There Is No Burden-Sharing
I was having trouble walking that Saturday morning. Exhausted, fatigued, and discouraged, I had told my husband I couldn’t participate in the church leaf-raking service project we were doing for our widows and shut-ins. I felt embarrassed when my family left the house clad in boots and gloves and armed with rakes and leaf-blowers to…
What We Pray in the Dark
It was 1:30 a.m. Pain seared through my lower back, wrapping itself around my S. I. joints and radiating into the deepest part of my hips. I moved from bed to couch and back, rearranging the pillows a dozen times, applying ice and heat wherever I could. There was no relief. None. Tears dripped down…
Funeral Pants
I think I bought the pants before the pandemic began. I can’t remember, to be honest. But we’d had a series of deaths in our small congregation, and being a work-from-home mom, I didn’t own anything quite right for a funeral since I hadn’t attended one in a while. I found myself standing at a…
Sharp Tools, Good Hands
I didn’t have to look at the clock to know what it said, but I looked anyway. Two-thirty-six a.m. I know what that part of the night feels like; it’s not a new phenomenon. I’ve had nightly waking pain for the better part of eleven years. I creep out of bed, walk in a stooped…
Sorrow, Joy, and Forty Years
A warm June rain soaks the world outside my window. We’ve had a few of those wild, humid summer storms that send us to the basement listening for the tornado sirens. But not today. Today, it’s just a good, gentle soaking. While I sit at my dining room table tapping away on my laptop, everything…
Feel Your Weakness, Feel Your Need
I lay on my left side facing the screen. The sonographer squirted a clear jelly on the wand and rested it near my sternum. Fascinated, I watched images of my heart fill the screen—pumping, beating, opening, closing. This is amazing, I thought, until I felt the familiar flutters and off beats pounding in my chest….
Is it Sinful to Live in the Past?
I was juggling housework and a very energetic two-year-old yesterday morning when the phone rang. My friend on the other end, also dealing with a little one, had called with a very specific question about suffering and sin. As I’ve mulled it over, I decided to address her question publicly (with her permission). She asked…
The Strongest Thread
It was mid-October a year ago when my mom had brain surgery to remove a tumor from her left frontal lobe. Hovering over the place where her speech and emotions live, the tumor had grown quickly enough to cause a seizure and lost time. I remember how nervous we were when it all happened on…