I had to watch a YouTube video first. I had never dead-headed a rosebush before, but the razor-sharp secateurs in my hand promised to make it an easy job. I watched the man on the video three times to be sure I had the process right. Grab the dead-head, go down to the first five-leaf…
Think Like a Farmer
I paused by my favorite field on my bike ride this morning. It’s hot for early June, and unless I was riding into the wind, the heat and humidity were relentless. I stopped by the field, though, to take a swig of water and snap a picture. Sweat covered every inch of my skin, but…
The Gift of Tangled Roots
On a trip to the California coast with my sister, I had the opportunity to explore Muir Woods National Monument, a redwood forest. As we walked through the woods, my sister and I noted how the massive redwood trees grew in groves. The national park signs throughout Muir Woods didn’t call them groves or circles…
Guarantees are Hard to Come By
Guarantees are hard to come by these days. After sixty days of cancellations and loneliness, I feel like there are few promises I can make and keep anymore. My kids ask, “When can we play with other kids again? Will we have school this fall? Will we get to have birthday parties with our friends…
You Can Break Now
I came to motherhood the hard way: with years of waiting and hundreds of negative pregnancy tests and enough tears to fill an ocean nearly as large as the hole in my heart. Sixteen years ago, we were going through our first round of testing for infertility, and I sat in church while the pastor…
Missives
As fast as I could send them, they came back to me. Every day, nearly, there’s a letter in the mailbox. I thought I was the only one doing something old, something with scripted words that flow from a pen and hand cramps and premeditated thought rather than a screen with keys and clicking and…
More and More
One night at dinner last month, my husband asked our kids what the term “sanctification” means. We’d been reading 1 Thessalonians together and got to chapter 4 where Paul tells us what God’s will for our lives is: our sanctification (1 Thess. 4:3). I don’t know if I ever noticed this verse until a few…
Sanctification in Quarantine
I’m worn down. Early on, this isolation felt like a reprieve from our formerly busy schedules. No meetings, no pastoral visits that kept my husband away from home in the evenings, no ball practices or tutoring. No hurried school drop-offs or pick-ups. No cooking a meal for Sunday afternoon potlucks while scrambling to get ready…
I Didn’t Know I Loved You Like This
I didn’t know I loved you like this. A lot of mornings, I grumbled before I saw you. It was a lot of work to get myself together, to get the rest of us together, to put things in order just to get to you. And when I saw you, I took you for granted,…
Quarantine Books and Songs
Now that many of us* are working from home, spending every evening at home, and generally finding more hours in our day for things like reading or talking walks, I thought I’d share a list of books and songs that you might enjoy. I tried to keep my list of books to titles that have…