A week ago, the phone rang before dawn. There’s never a good reason for calls so early, and my heart immediately began pounding when I answered the phone. A dear church member was on the other end, her voice thick with tears and panic. Her husband had died unexpectedly in the early morning hours. It…
following Christ
All Things New
I remember her determination. That’s what I remember the most. It was the first week of the new year, and my friend was, as my grandmother used to say, “bound and determined.” This year would be different. This year would be the year everything lined up straight, nothing stepping out of line. All her goals…
How to Have Joy When the Holidays are Hard
It was December, 2015. I’d never approached the holidays on such shaky ground. We pulled out the decorations and sipped hot cider while Christmas songs spilled from our favorite holiday Pandora station. If you’d seen us through the windows of our home, it was likely the warm, sugary image of holiday perfection. But tears streaked…
Changing Diapers to the Glory of God
It was an exceptionally trying day. My energetic and precocious two-year old had gotten away from me more than once during our quick errands to the library and post office. Employees at both venues laughed and nodded and offered commiserating quips about the “terrible twos.” I forced laughter while wrestling my squirrelly toddler to the…
5 Tools for the Christian Struggling with Anxiety
I knew when I turned out the light that I would be up in a couple of hours. I could feel the unsettling burning in my stomach. I was tired enough to fall asleep quickly, but when the clock read 2:30 a.m, I was predictably awake with a pounding heart, sweat-soaked pajamas, and a brain…
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…
There’s Blessing in the Longing
I want to run away from these words. I hit “publish” so you wouldn’t feel alone when your hopes rise and fall in a tumble of confusing might-have-beens. It’s embarrassing to admit after thirteen years of one-lined tests that sometimes I still find myself entertaining a glimmer of hope that my situation might change. It’s…
Keep a Soft Heart
Repeatedly inked on the pages of my journal for the past ten months are the words keep a soft heart. Truly, it has taken all thirty-six years of my life to develop a one-sentence prayer that expresses one of my deepest and most regular needs. Keep a soft heart. I searched for the words to…
Real Love Awakens Us to Real Life
Last week I fell down a rabbit hole of remembering. It began with a search for my journal from the year we adopted our oldest son and ended with me digging through a musty pile of notebooks in the basement. I swiped away cobwebs from the dark corner of the cellar where the box of…
Future Discipleship Part 2: God’s Part in Our Perseverance
When my husband and I first settled into rural church ministry twelve years ago, I was a little unprepared for the pace of life offered by the farming community where we had made our new home. We had left a much larger college town buzzing with traffic and commutes, a life where I’d had a…