Faith

She is curled at my feet, nose tucked beneath her tail. Right now she is peaceful, worn out from our after-dinner walk in which she had a chance to run free through the woods. When she emerged with a rabbit’s leg, severed from the rest of the body, stripped of flesh save the furry foot,…

Over the past several months, I took part in Lore Wilbert’s Writing Mentorship course. If you don’t know Lore, well, me neither — at least not in person. But thanks to years of blog stalking, I’ve come to know her as a gorgeous writer: intentional, challenging, and smart as a whip. Our faith looks different…

I grew up as a pastor’s daughter, an identity that I largely shook when I left home at 18, but which played an undeniable role in my formation. In getting to know other pastor’s kids (PKs) over the years, I’ve found some common threads in our experiences; for example, the pressure of visibility, unfair expectations…

Over the past month or so, I’ve woken up several times in the middle of the night with a sudden panic that I’ve left Foxy outside in the cold. I sit up straight and call her name, scared to death that she is [morbid alert] frozen to death out in the yard. And each time,…

The past several weeks have been so full. I’ve had multiple work trips (Minneapolis, San Francisco, Anaheim), three humongous work events, houseguests, family visits, and a particular emotional roller coaster that’s still unfolding. With each close friend that I confide in, I realize that my heart is hoping more and more for a certain outcome,…

I’ve heard it said that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches of this planet. And while we obviously can’t count either (trust me, I’ve done some very official Internet Research), I think that the point is that the universe is startlingly, overwhelmingly, mind-bogglingly gigantic – which…

I don’t feel much like getting up from this bed. My legs are stretched out in front of me and crossed at the ankles, left over right, giving me a good view of my newly pedicured toes. I broke one of them a few years ago – stubbed it on my couch, the one I…

For the past couple of days, I’ve been feeling a bit untethered. I can see how one might define the word “untethered” as freedom – no constraints, no confinement, nobody puts Baby in a corner – and that is a valid interpretation. But that’s not what I’ve been feeling. To me this week, “untethered” has…

I’ve been in Kansas City with my family all week. Everyone is here: parents, siblings, nephews, future brother-in-law, 3 dogs, and all of the cookies in the world. Tomorrow, I load into a Subaru Forester with Becca and Michael, Gabe and Toad, Becca’s wedding dress, their wedding decorations, and all of our Christmas loot, and…

When I turned 30, I had the sinking realization that no one was going to fix me. I had long harbored the belief – although perhaps not consciously – that someday, something was going to shift, and I would no longer be broken/sad/angry/afraid/lonely/insecure/what-have-you. Believing that someday things would change somehow made it easier to accept…