The first time I saw him, I was still in high school. This isn’t a high school sweetheart story, because he didn’t remember my name when I bumped into him a year later. No, the first time we met, I was the only high school member of a college worship team making the two-hour drive…
the Gospel
Never Alone
Janie and I met as teenagers. She walked with me through my infertility, and I supported her through her years of singleness. We both became ministry wives, then mothers. Janie seemed to be made for mothering. She was the one I turned to when my son was little and I was unsure how to deal with…
Dinnertime Devotions and Gospel Hope
I made too much chicken. That’s how it started. Too much chicken. As I cooked dinner last night, I thought through my day, mentally adding things to tomorrow’s to-do list, stepping out of the kitchen periodically to address sibling squabbles in the next room. Moving between tasks, I prepared twice as much chicken as our…
On Sundays, We Eat
“It will never work,” I told him. My husband kept talking, pointing out all the ways a weekly meal after church on Sundays would benefit our efforts at building community. After corporate worship, he wanted the church to gather for a meal together before splitting into groups to discuss the sermon. Every week. “Even if…
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…
What Heals a Broken Heart
I tugged my son’s hand as we shuffled slowly toward his bedroom. He never wants to nap but always needs one. In true three-year-old fashion, he stamped his foot, pulled his hand away, crossed his arms over his chest and declared: “I not want to nap!” I responded with my regular mother lecture: “You need…
I Love You in Iambic Pentameter
for William The first time he wrote a sonnet for me, I was finishing my senior year of college and struggling through a Shakespeare class. This was after he bought a book of the bard’s sonnets and tore a page from it every time he wanted to tell me he loved me. Sonnet 116 was…
Where is the Bright, New Day?
Every Sunday night we have movie and charcuterie night at our house. I slice up cheese and sausages, lay out crackers, pickles, dried fruit, and popcorn, and I put stacks of napkins on the coffee table in lieu of plates. Everyone puts on their pajamas, and we crowd around our snacks together on the floor….
To the End of the Age, to the End of This Day
I navigated the drop-off line at my son’s new school with a bit of trepidation. One lane split into two, and I carefully rolled to a stop at the crossing guard’s persistent arm-waving. My son opened the car door and paused to tell me goodbye before leaving the safety of my presence. On the way,…
Our Only Hope in Life and Death
I never heard the word ‘catechism’ until I was an adult. Well, that’s not entirely true. I remember reading the word in a book once as a child and wondering what it meant, pronouncing it cat-a-CHism in my head, with a hard CH, like in the word cheese. I grew up a Southern Baptist and…