Prayer

All things new

Just the other day, I was reminiscing with my mom about 2011 (i.e. The Worst Year Ever) – and while she said that she has blocked out a lot of those memories, to me they’re still vivid, still shocking. Cynthia Monahon calls trauma “the occurrence of the unthinkable,” and if we’re using that definition, 2011…

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Labor Day

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…

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Change of plans

I’m on vacation this week, but my plans – however tentative – have been scrapped. Baby Zion arrived in Colorado Springs with his family (my brother and sister-in-law and two older nephews) on Saturday, and within an hour, was rushed to the ER because he wasn’t breathing. He almost died that night. Now he is…

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Waves

Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us…

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A title that fits

In a grand twist of events, I found myself dining last night at the Eastland Café with my two roommates, one of their mothers, and two strangers. I had the duck. I love duck. The strangers quickly became friends. I fell in love with these women. I heard their stories – what brought them to…

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Sorrow

Keeping vigil with the Townes today. There are no words. I am clinging to the truth that no matter how deep our sorrow, God’s love is deeper still. And I’ve heard it said that grace always flows downhill: pooling in the deepest, darkest places of our pain. May the Townes feel that inexpressible peace that…

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O is for Our Father

When your spirit feels stripped, when your foundation is rocked, when you watch your friend’s lives being torn in half like a giant bed sheet, you begin to wonder about this God – the one that you have never not known, the one that you have sung about since you can remember, the one that…

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Ben

In July of 2007, I took a ferry from Seattle across the water to Bainbridge Island, and drove to the beach where I met one of my best friends, Carin, and her 2-year old son Ben. We walked along the water, and threw rocks into the waves, and looked for little sand crabs, and ate…

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By the way…

… D is also for decisions, discernment, and distraction. Any of you who have been following this blog for awhile know that I struggle with “knowing” if I am making the right decisions in my life. I continually question whether or not I’m in the right place, moving in the right direction, meeting the right…

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Forgiveness

When I was in Kansas City last weekend, I confessed to my mom that I am really angry with someone. Really mad. I am harboring some strong unforgiveness toward this person for wronging me – and trust me, I was wronged. This person did some sloppy things, and I was the recipient of the mud-to-the-face….

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