a long obedience in the same direction
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what i learned this spring.
Happy Memorial Day and (for us) Happy Summer, dear blog friends! By way of catching up, I thought I’d share with you some bits and pieces of what I’m learning right now. I’ve learned that I spend a lot of time in the van. It’s the season, of life, I know. What blows my mind is that we played no sports this spring and my kids aren’t in traditional school, my mother-in-law helped me one day a week with various drop-offs, and I still felt like I spent gobs of time in the van all school year. I seriously don’t know how you do it, who juggle multiple sports…
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turning 41.
On Tuesday I turned 41 years old. I asked Gabe if he feels overwhelmed by how old his mom is, to which he replied, “Well you don’t look old, so I don’t mind at all!” Sweet Gabe. A few months ago the book club of ladies from our church decided to go see a Broadway show in Greenville. They very kindly invited me along even though I haven’t had time to attend book club in about two years. So I told David that’s what I wanted to do to celebrate my birthday. We drove up on Saturday and had a perfect day. First stop: a little shopping at M. Judson…
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raising teenagers.
Since I’ve neglected the blog so often in 2022, I realize that I never documented Judah’s 15th birthday. I’m kicking myself for deleting my Instagram account before copying what I posted about him on September 8th, but here it is to the best of my memory: Judah is 15 years old today. He loves listening to classic rock on his record player, running, paddle-boarding, Mr. Blackwell’s high school co-op, Stranger Things, and reading. He’s working on his second novel. He has a gift for noticing people others don’t notice and welcoming them in. He tells his little brothers a bedtime story every single night, and prays aloud for me when…
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the soul that’s wide and deep.
I sit here at my writing desk, laptop open, staring at a blank screen. David has taken three kids to the thrift shop to hunt for Halloween costume accessories, and another kid just wandered outside to the trampoline. For a few glorious minutes, silence has wrapped itself around my shoulders like my favorite green India-cotton blanket, easing the tension that bunches there. It’s a cool, golden fall day, but still I close my bedroom windows, because my body and soul long for stillness. It seems like that’s what I crave most these days. I want to be still. I want to be alone. I long for a refuge from voices…
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sabbatical.
“Too often we try to avoid the scary place where we love so deep, so much, our hearts could break. But without the bitterness, we would never appreciate the sweetness.” Katie Davis Majors We have four weeks left of a 12-week sabbatical, and even though that seems a long time, in our hearts David and I are already gearing up for our return to church ministry on September 1. I was so determined, when we first embarked on this season — on our first sabbatical — to “get fixed.” I wanted to use the time efficiently, to disconnect well, to rest well, to make new memories with my family…
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thanksgiving gratitude.
There are limitless gifts I could thank God for on this rainy, cozy Thanksgiving morning at the end of 2020. Here are five of them. He is purifying and refining His Church. Suffering always exposes what’s really in our hearts, what we really live for. Always. And for most of us, 2020 has been a year of suffering, in big and small ways. Trials have a way of bringing out our true nature — the entitlement, pride, control, distrust, anxiety, and fear. This is just as true for Christians as it is for non-Christians. And the question we are faced with, as believers, is, “What will we do with our…
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a time to heal.
When the quarantine started in the middle of March, I was just as bewildered as the rest of the nation. As I was helping my kids process canceled soccer games, birthday parties, and homeschool co-op activities, I can tell you for sure that I never expected to still be in quarantine nearly eight weeks later. This has been an experience unlike any other, and I have the feeling that it will leave indelible marks on many. As I mentioned several weeks ago, David and I tottered at the edge of burn-out this spring. I typically shy away from that term, because it sounds melodramatic. But if you prefer: we were…
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what are you feeding yourself?
This winter I read a book called You Who: Why You Matter and How to Deal With It, by Rachel Jankovic. It’s about our identity as Christians and how many of us seem to have lost sight of that identity and are drifting along, unsure of who we are. As I read, I realized how much the values of the world shaped my approach to life. This didn’t happen intentionally or consciously. I love God and I’m a sincere follower of Him — I’m in full-time ministry, for Pete’s sake. But somehow, as I read, I realized that even so, a whole set of values that’s foreign to God’s will…
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on daily bible reading in 2019.
I’ve been a professing born-again believer for most of my life, and therefore I’ve been reading my Bible for most of my life. I don’t take that for granted, you know. Being raised in a home where spending time learning God’s Word was the norm, something I was encouraged to do almost without thinking. That heritage was a gift given to me by the Lord that I did nothing to deserve. And honestly, I’ve had varying and changeable motivations for reading my Bible (or as I’ve called it “having a quiet time”) over the years, probably the primary one being from my Enneagram One-ness, which, if you’ll remember, is the…
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what worked and what didn’t in 2018, part 1.
Hello there, my friends! I hope you’ve recovered from the holidays and are settling into 2019, ready as I am to embrace the comfort of familiar rhythms and routines. This post was a request from my husband and it gives me a chance to say: I love blog post requests! I enjoy writing and sometimes run out of ideas, or think maybe you get bored of reading about the same old/same old, so if there’s anything you want me to write about, don’t ever hesitate to ask! I like a good assignment. In lieu of making New Year’s Resolutions I typically take some time during the first couple weeks of…
