I was standing at the window this time last year, staring at the blank ground. My imagination had to stretch and bend to arrange irises, daffodils, zucchinis, cucumbers, and lettuce in their proper beds and boxes. I was sick with spring fever, and all I could do was write about it. But this winter, I’ve … Continue reading Seedtime
For seven years, I stood on my neighbors’ porches every other Friday to hand them some pages I’d written, rolled into a rubber band and labelled: Argyle News. The neighborhood newspaper was mostly a briefing of the birthdays, holidays, and graduations in my family, sometimes headlined by a tree that had fallen across Edgewood Road … Continue reading Front Porch Ambitions
"Why not build into your life unhurried quiet, where, among other disciplines, you consider the radiance of who [Jesus] actually is, what animates him, what his deepest delight is? Why not give your soul room to be reenchanted with Christ time and again?" - Dane Ortlund, "Gentle and Lowly" Newness Snow falling across the train … Continue reading january ttmmh
I wrap a blanket around my cold shoulders every morning and sit to read a book that feels just as warm-- Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. Dane Ortlund writes: “What elicits tenderness from Jesus is not the severity of the sin but whether the sinner comes to him.”[i] If … Continue reading Good but Unsafe
Friday, January 8 I fiddled with my ring while mom picked up the phone to talk to Drew, and her face froze: “It’s time?” They induced Leanna tonight, and all I know about that is it will get the baby here tomorrow or the day after. Saturday Evening, January 9 Got kids clambering all over … Continue reading He Came with the Morning
I'm thankful for books. Here are the ones on 2020's shelf--- all forty of them, and each was good and glory-reflective in its unique way. (I've linked to Goodreads, where you can thumb through each book a little more.) Cheating Death by Larry Kaniut The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis The Return of the … Continue reading 40 Books on My Shelf
There’s a lot I could do, write, remember, cry over, and give thanks for at the end of 2020. I keep shadowboxing the scary idea of summing it all up— wrestling the last twelve months into a corner and chalking them up as “good,” “terrible,” or “sanctifying” (all the above). But summaries tend to accentuate … Continue reading A Year in Books
"So we sing carols softly, as sweet as we knowA prayer that our burdens will lift as we goLike young love still waiting under mistletoeWe'll welcome December with tireless hope." - "Snow" by Sleeping at Last Lighting our first Advent candle in hope (and Liturgy Wood's beautiful cards) New floors Oatmeal and apples and soup … Continue reading december ttmmh
Read: 1 Corinthians 13:4 & Galatians 4:4-5 I read Wendell Berry novels to learn that life is long and work is slow. Hannah Coulter is Nathan and Hannah’s long, slow story of love. But what is a “love story,” really? Is it when people "fall" and didn't see it coming? Is it what Hallmark says … Continue reading Love as the Work of Years
December 13 Read: Luke 2:8-11 & John 16:20-22 I was still deciding what I could give up for Lent last winter when God chose for me— for all of us. He took my sister’s unborn baby after just ten days inside her. Leanna miscarried on Ash Wednesday, but we’ve gone without that little one for … Continue reading The Shadows Before Sunrise
