I tell the story of my keys hoping to find my way in the challenges that are surely ahead, and also clearing the path for my peers and their families and friends. And really, aren’t we all longing to be “transformed by the renewal of our minds?”
Dear Friends, I don’t really consider myself to have a green thumb. I love plants and keep many around my house—as long as I can keep my cats from chewing on them—and our yard is filled with foliage. But every once in awhile, something dies, and I don’t have a clue why. One such plant…
The original Plan—perfect but rejected. Sending hope cascading like a slinky toy down a staircase, coiling, tumbling, coiling, tumbling landing in a tangled heap. The same Plan—a different approach set into motion, to reclaim, and restore hope, unfurling it from earth to far beyond the stars. Unfolding, revealing year after year, a tender plant, growing…
I was on a hike in a Florida nature preserve when my friend pointed out trees whose limbs were wrapped with brown, shriveled, lifeless leaves. “These are Pleopeltis polypodioides, commonly called resurrection ferns. They can survive up to 100 years without water, and revive after a single exposure to moisture,” he explained. We celebrate Resurrection…
“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” Ephesians 5:14 (NIV). I’ve heard the question “How is Christ’s death and resurrection affecting your everyday life?” And I wonder, Is it? When I think of the phrase “resurrection life” I think of the new struggles I face as a believer. I…
My brother knocked on my bedroom door at our childhood home. “It’s happening,” he said. I jumped out of bed, threw on a sweatshirt, and ran downstairs to my parents’ room. All my siblings and I had moved away from home years before. But that week, we’d returned to the house with the cedar siding…
Staring at Death’s Face She gazed down the way, searching for his familiar form. Surely he’ll be here, she whispered, willing her words to make it so. “Come quickly,” she’d said. “Your friend is sick.” Two days. It’d been two days since she sent word. Where was he? Didn’t he care? Her pace quickened as…
“If you walk along here,” he said, tracing the tip of his pen along the shoreline, “you should be able to see the seals lying out on the sandbar. And here,” the pen stopped, “there’s a little shack people have assembled over the years. We always point it out, but some recent guests told us…
All along, Thought I was learning how to take How to bend not how to break How to laugh not how to cry— But really I’ve been learning how to die. -Jon Foreman, Learning How to Die I held up the gingerbread patterned nail file I’d received in my Christmas stocking and said, “This is…
“But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’. Anything beyond these is of evil” (Matthew 5:37 NASB). This year, I cut my hair (dramatically). I changed my name (both professionally and among family). I honored myself with a gift, in the form of a declaration of independence that I had desired for more…
Dear Reader, When my grandson was born and I was helping his mom during those first days of motherhood, I hung out at their apartment with her so she wouldn’t be alone while my son was at work. I didn’t have much to do when she and the baby were napping–which was often–so I binge…
I love musicals. As a young single mom, I spent many rainy afternoons snuggled close with my oldest daughter as we watched “singing and dancing” movies like “Newsies,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” and ”The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” Many films simply stirred joy, but “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” carried all my favorite story ingredients: an underdog, an unlikely…
Rain drove me to the desert. Years of rain, actually. I’d grown up under gray Midwestern skies that lasted weeks in a row during winter and spring. And fall. Recess was soggy grass and slick playgrounds, a purple raincoat and foggy glasses. At fourteen, we moved to the sunshine state where humidity would collect in…
A few years back, I accompanied my twin daughters along with the rest of their grade school class on a field trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I had plans to explore and engage in hands-on experiences, so when we were immediately ushered into the auditorium to watch a 3D film about…