The cliff was high and blanketed in wildflowers. My ears had popped repeatedly as we drove up the coastal highway to get to this piece of land jutting out over the Pacific Ocean. Now I stood at the edge and watched the surf pound the rocky shore below with an upward salty spray. Toes at […]
Every day this week, rain has soaked our corner of the earth. All the blooming things of last week are trodden down, beat low to the ground beneath the weight of these regular downpours. The blooms we celebrated and took pictures of last week (because, “who can remember such a beautiful spring?”) are now scattered […]
(This is National Infertility Awareness Week. Statistics show that 1 in 8 couples are affected by infertility. After fifteen years of ongoing infertility, I want to share one story of how I was loved as 1 in 8.) I met Ranelle when I was twenty-one years old. I was newly engaged to my now-husband and […]
“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 […]
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 […]
I was twenty-four when we packed up the U-haul truck on a blistering hot day in July. Sweat trickled down my back as we hefted the last of the cardboard boxes into the truck. We locked the front door of the white, 1920’s bungalow we’d bought two years prior. The for-sale sign still stood in […]
I live in a small town in rural Missouri. Farmland surrounds the town, creeping inward in places. The local kindergarten building sits across the street from a corn field, and our little church is flanked on two sides by cotton fields. My husband and I moved here nearly fourteen years ago for my husband to […]
There’s a lot of chatter these days about writing and blogging and the merits of doing both whether anyone is reading or not. Though we hardly need another voice to add to the mix, the beauty of blogging allows me to offer my thoughts on the subject simply because this tiny corner of the internet […]
Sometimes I forget that God loves me. Or, to be honest, I choose not to believe that He does. I look at my daily failures, at my favored sins of pride and anger—and I think that I must be such a disappointment to God. Yes, He saved me, but look at what a mess I […]
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 […]
