Last week I sent you a blog post one morning about suffering. That evening I got a shocking call that my aunt had gone into the hospital with stomach pain and would be coming out with a grim diagnosis of stage IV cancer. The next morning I had a short text from my close friend…
When I stretch out my arms and turn a full circle, almost everyone brushed by my fingertips is in the middle of staggering hardship right now. I hardly know a single family untouched by life-altering medical diagnoses, and then there are those with immense financial strain, marriages for which we’re holding our breath, and kids…
“Does your mother know you did that?” I said, with eyes wide and jaw dropped. There he was in the video, with an ice hook in each hand and ice picks for shoes, slowly climbing a frozen Montana waterfall. He just laughed at my question and said, “It was so fun!” No, fun is…
She was a captivating, animated story teller, let me tell you, made better only by the accent she still carried from growing up in South Africa. We ate lunch together in Canada, where I was the guest speaker at a pastors’ wives retreat. She began one story with her move from Africa to Canada…
“Whose dumb idea was it for you to go to college in Texas?” I threw at him. He just looked at me and raised his eyebrows. We were packing his suitcase, and I was having very sad mom feelings. Okay, so it was our idea for him to attend our alma mater in central Texas….
I’ve had a bad run over the last few weeks. When I say “run,” I mean a streak of impulsive behaviors followed by guilt followed by misery followed by the humiliating need to apologize. No boulders of sin, mind you, but a pebble of rebelliousness here, a little disrespect there, a regular thoughtlessness everywhere. Feels…
It’s Christmas, and that man of mine has only one person on his list: yours truly. He was expressing (with a flirty look) the urgency he feels, to carve out a shopping day so he can buy stuff for a certain someone. Don’t tell him, but I have a secret list going. It’s a…
Only the mother may pass. Behind the door of Jayme’s room (still hers in our hearts, even though she has a man and a mortgage now) lie growing mounds of Christmas treasures. Nondescript paper grocery sacks carry only a name on the outside but hand-picked stocking stuffers on the inside. On the floor in the…
Texas is a long way from Wyoming, and I could feel every mile. As a freshman without a car, I walked to church one Sunday night –me and my homesick heart. In one quiet neighborhood of older homes, I started past a house that had the front door open. Through the screen door, I could…
Of course, I had never even seen an olive tree before. Sagebrush and aspen trees were what I grew up with. But then we were in Israel, and there were olive trees everywhere, with ripe olives dropped and smooshed on the ground. One cool evening, we sat on stones while Arie (ar-yeah) Bar David gave…
Every once in a while I would splurge on that girl of mine and buy her a pomegranate at the grocery store. In Montana these are a rare and evidently precious fruit, based on the price –a special treat on occasion. But in Israel? I could not stop staring at an entire fridge packed with…
We were slouched on the couch, in a jet-lag stupor, when he leaned over to me and said, “You know what?” I let my weary head swing his direction. “What?” “Israel was great and everything, but I feel like I didn’t get to spend any time with the Lord while I was there.” “Seriously?”…
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