Know God. Live Big.
My prayer list right now feels unbearable. So many in my circle have serious health issues and then the cha-ching, cha-ching of expenses that snake around each diagnosis. My heart! What I want to do is reach for my checkbook and say, “Here, at least let me pay for all of it for you.” Except, oh wait, we’re trying to… Read More
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 who had been caring for… Read More
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 breaking their parents’ hearts. Last… Read More
It’s freezing out here. I’m sitting in my car, in front of the high school, with some time to kill before I accompany the next round of vocalists for festival practice. Cars are driving by covered in a few inches of white, and I can see the snow clouds pressing down on the mountains to my right. Should have worn… Read More
Dad told me about 50 times that I’d better watch out, because one day that brother of mine would be bigger than me and able to lay me low. Whatever, I said. Of course, dad didn’t know that a few decades later I would find myself crying my way through the Celtic Woman’s Oh, Holy Night. (Aren’t they lovely in… Read More
On Wednesday I woke up at my normal 3:00 a.m. Wrote a blog post. And then stretched out on the couch downstairs to go back to sleep for a few hours, like I do most nights of the week. Except I could not go back to sleep. And on this particular Wednesday I was going to be making the first… Read More
I left the writer’s retreat so that I could teach Spanish on Friday afternoon. With a few minutes to spare, I decided to swing into the church and get a hug from my husband. The parking lot was full, which was weird for a Friday when usually only my husband is there working on his sermon. I wonder what’s going… Read More
I was just on Facebook and a friend had posted that people should have to pass drug tests in order to receive welfare. Then I sat down on the floor to fold underwear and was thinking about people doing drugs. (Us girls, we do tend to think on a round-about.) My thoughts went back a few months to April and… Read More
Every so often I get enough of a leisurely day to pull out the Fleischmann’s. I’m undisciplined in the kitchen (although I’m hoping to grow out of that), but I do love to make a good yeast bread. Cinnamon rolls, homemade tortillas, or cinnamon rolls. Bread is like a garden except 69 hours less work. You plant some yeast (which… Read More
We came home with a little instrument, and every night I had to insert it into the palate-spreading apparatus in the top of my girl’s mouth. (When I had braces they called it a palate splitter, which seemed more appropriate.) One time I started the turn and didn’t realize the tool wasn’t inserted into the hole correctly. Jabbed that girl… Read More