God's Pursuit of Me
To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love. - A.W. Tozer
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the language my children speak
I don’t really have a gauge for how to write about my husband leaving our family. Is there a code for what to include and what to leave out? I hate divorce. It’s easy to hate that. Has God used this evil for good in the lives of my children and myself? Absolutely and already. Is divorce good? Absolutely not. The sadness for me personally is a bit removed, a little in the past. I mean, the consequences feel never ending and there is no sentence I could ever write to encompass all of what I would like to say about those feelings and that pain. But the feelings…
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time & sleep & our own hard things . . .
It’s seldom about the words. (Although, occasionally it is.) The reason that I most frequently miss posting a blog on any given evening is (almost always) about time. There is simply never enough of it. Which, I know, is a silly thing to say. We all have the same amount of time. There’s twenty-four hours in everyone’s day. We can’t make time, but we can arrange time. Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future. Time makes memories of us all. There’s always enough time to do what matters most. You make time for what matters. And so on. When I wrote this confessions post last week, it started…
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the end is not like the beginning: A God story
I don’t have a new year’s introspective look-back look-ahead kind of post inside me tonight. Not for this year. Not for the last year. Maybe next year? Who am I kidding? I can’t emotionally afford to think about New Year’s Day 2018 right now. I’m literally sitting at my kitchen table with zero plan of how this simple blog entry will even end in a few minutes, I certainly don’t have what it takes right now to envision an entire year looming in front of my face. To my right, my vanilla tea is hot. I’m thankful for that. The fridge is a wasted storage space for nothingness because…
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a heart that holds on
“Good News and Great Joy”. That’s been the title for December’s sermon series at our church. Through a series of unfortunate events our family missed last week’s church service. The focus, I was told, was tilted toward the joy aspect. This week we did not miss church and when the pastor said something about this week’s message honing in on when joy and suffering meet, he mentioned how last week’s sermon was heavier on the joy and this week’s sermon was heavier on the suffering. A statement that caused me to lean over to Hilary, seated to my left, and whisper in her ear, “Well good. I’m much more…
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those things you can lose . . .
Do you know that bargaining? The kind you do with God? The kind you don’t really talk about during the daylight? The kind that happens after hours, in the dark, when the stuff is hitting the fan? The middle of the night, crisis burning, repeated requests kind of petitioning? The “not that one thing. Just not that one thing.” (That one thing being your health or your marriage or your children or your job or your parents or your home or your ability or your talent. That one thing. Whatever your one thing might be right at the moment.) And then that one thing happens. That one thing that…
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good vs. evil. let the one outshine the other.
It’s been Romans all year. Last school year the Romans were the subject of our history curriculum. For most of this year, the sermons at my church have focused on a close verse by verse study of the book of Romans. It’s been on my mind; you can see why. The last part of Romans 16:19 says . . . but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. This quote was shared when that chapter was read. I want to see you experts in good, and not even beginners in evil. JB Phillips When I think about raising my kids…
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divorce diaries. entry 5.
I’ve almost forgotten what the routine Used To Be. Almost forgotten what it was like to grocery shop with a partner. The Divide and The Conquer. I’ve kind of grown accustomed to being The Only One. Some days it almost feels as if there never was a Before. (Some days.) Some days I just groove and strut along and forget I was not always in charge of every meal and all the yays and all the nays. And then some days it feels as if I am living with a severed limb. The ghost pains. The crushing weight of No One With Whom To Confer. Should this be allowed?…
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. . . when vomit drew me closer to Jesus
When I say Otto was sick this week, I mean the poor little guy was for reals sick. He counted each time he threw up. I didn’t realize he was keeping track. There he was, little silver bowl in hand, emptying his stomach contents. “Nine,” he stated. Nine times. It wiped him out. It wiped me out. And it took my sheets out too. But whatever. London was sick all night. Otto started in early early morning after I had stolen a few hours of rest. While cleaning up Otto I heard footsteps racing across the upstairs hallway. Bergen was joining the sick ranks. If you’re counting that is…
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every hour
The day is done but in Many Ways it has just started. I’m sitting down in that half way attire of the nighttime. Pajama pants, shirt from the day, earrings off, feet tucked up under myself at the kitchen table. Dishwasher humming, Ryder asleep on the threshold, the spiral notebooks with tomorrow’s school lists stacked to my left not quite ready for the students to do their work but I know they need to be before the pillow greets me. I don’t know where I am supposed to be in life but I’ve got a decent handle on where I actually am. The house is basically tidy and that…
Keep Reading . . .
swimming in the deep end
a little this, a little that
farm, framily, feelings, photos
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What To Tell Your Friends When They Tell You Their Marriage Is Broken
Maybe I’ll be writing about stuff I don’t want to write about until the day I die. That’s probably kind of true. Last month I wrote a post about Helping Your Friends Through Sad Stuff. You guys – why is there always SO MUCH sad stuff? If it isn’t in the news (and it is ALWAYS in the news) then it’s on your living room sofa and at the coffee shop and it’s showing up in your gmail account and dripping into you phone via text and emoticons. A lot of bad stuff goes down. At church last weekend there were some guys wearing t-shirts that said “share your…
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Five Finds Friday (chocolate pudding and head wraps on sale. also cookie pigs.)
Friday comes in on little cat’s feet. No – wait, that’s the fog, right? It comes in on little cat’s feet in a poem – correct? Yeah, who knows. That was probably a nerdy literary reference that only I think is funny. That’s fine. Let’s not mention it – okay? FUNNY This is a real cookie that one of our favorite bakeries sold to us. What is happening here? I don’t even know what it is I am supposed to be looking at. A mama pig? It’s too weird to consume. FASHIONABLE Babies need fashion too. And babies need spit/drool/sweet potato puree…
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list the good and share it.
It’s almost always late at night when I write. (Sometimes I commandeer an afternoon or a rare weekend morning, but generally it’s after kids are put to bed and the house sounds like whirring fans and humming dishwasher and sleeping dog.) And I think differently at night – a lot of piled up and poured out and held back can come out all through my fingers in the dimly lit rooms of my home. (And the rooms are ALL dimly lit, you guys. I don’t especially care for the dark.) Tonight I sat at a table with my daughters and some grown ups. We laughed and we talked and…
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the life jacket decision.
This summer we were swimming at a lake. Piper Finn has really advanced in her swimming abilities since last summer but the lake has murky water deeper than all of our heights combined and she still has limited experience in deep water swimming. I required her to wear a life jacket if she chose to venture past a specific spot in the water. I’m the mom. I made a mom decision. Piper did NOT agree with my decision. In fact, she pretty much thought it was the WORST. Her life jacket was cumbersome. It was heavy. Everyone who could swim well was not wearing a life jacket and she…
