The sunlight lengthens across the dining room table where I sit and write. It’s late afternoon and in this part of the world, we’re enjoying that gold stretching of light at the end of the day. I couldn’t sleep last night, tossing and turning and trying to figure out why I’ve had so much trouble…
Discipleship
The Fruit of Discipleship
When I was growing up, my mom kept a large bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter. Every week when she did her grocery shopping, she bought apples, oranges, and bananas to refill the bowl. I remember her polishing each apple individually to make them look appealing. There were no rules around snacking when it…
No Silver Bullet
Every Thursday, my friend Dora comes over for lunch and accountability. We catch up on life, talk about what God is teaching us, and confess our sins to one another. Our pastors are preaching through the book of Galatians this fall, and Dora and I find ourselves coming back to the sermon on Galatians 5:16-26…
How Paul Taught Our Children to Pray
“Family worship” is a term we use a bit loosely for the dinner table devotions we enjoy as a family each night. My husband usually reads some Scripture, one of the kids prays for a neighbor or someone from church, and we all sing the Doxology together. The highlight for my two boys is to…
Music Lessons
I picked out a tune on my grandparents’ old Wurlitzer when I was quite small, plucking the keys to make a melody I recognized. I could hear harmonies before I knew what they were, so my parents signed me up for music lessons when I was seven. I learned basics with one teacher, then switched…
More, Not Less
The heat of summer in our little corner of the world has turned everything stale. The trees are beginning to turn, but I think that’s more from heat than from the coming of fall. My husband and I often take our kids to ride on a local bike path on the edge of town. Several small bridges take the bike trail…
Our Eyes Are On You
I don’t know where the book came from. I didn’t buy it, don’t remember either of my kids opening it at Christmas or birthdays. Probably, it sneaked in with a pile of hand-me-down books from a neighbor or friend. I rarely say no to books anyway. However it got here, the book about pet monsters was perched…
Lord, Don’t (Just) Give Me Patience
One of my most prayed prayers is one for patience. Whispered, demanded, wept—it’s something I pray when my sin is pressing closer than the sins of others (though I often think it’s the other way around). When trying to fill my grocery cart while my kids bicker with one another, I grab items from the…
Because There’s No Gospel All Day
We were sitting in the coffee shop just before they closed. Dusk fell quietly outside the big picture window by our chairs. My twelve-year-old friend sipped a vanilla frappuccino while I blew on my steaming cup of decaf tea. At 37, I can ill afford a jolt of caffeine so late in the day. The…
Jesus is Not a Helpful Addition to Your Life
Our house was built in 1940. It’s got a large front living area, three small bedrooms, four tiny closets, hardwood floors, high ceilings, and wide trim—all hallmarks of little craftsman houses built in that era. It’s also got perpetual heating and cooling issues, plumbing problems, a roof that leaked, a kitchen desperate for renovation, and…