I crack my right eyeball. He’s up on his left elbow, leaning over me, staring… …at the clock, I guess, on the nightstand next to me. Then he’s fiddling with his phone. Did it go off? Or not? After I complained about the radio blasting strange music at weird hours and having to wake […]
A Trying Adventure
A fool says, “I can’t;” a wise man says, “I’ll try.” ~Charles Spurgeon Dave Vander Laan posted this as a Facebook status yesterday. I know it’s true. But it made me laugh. Because my mother would have so disagreed. In fact, saying “I’ll try” was not a wise thing to say to her. At. All. […]
Seed of Yahweh
I’ve been thinking about this seed of Yahweh conceived in love, planted in the cave of a woman-child, confined and nurtured in soft dark womb, nourished with her every heartbeat. How cells of cell multiplied until he fluttered light, then stretched and rose like yeast bread in her warm belly, until her body could no […]
Popping the Cork
I came home for a couple days of grandgirl duty because my husband had to go out of town. He didn’t greet me, and I didn’t see him under the dining room table. I knew right away. He jumped down from the dresser and trotted out when I opened the door. I knew it had […]
Gifted in Grief
I realized it just this morning. She was my age. She was also a nurse. Instrumental, I understand, in birthing this place. She was admitted the same day we were, to the room next door to ours. She’d done battle for 18 years. A bone marrow donor stood ready, but she could not bounce back […]
If I Should Die
Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. I remember. I’d pray this little prayer every night in my head in my little bed in the little (I mean little–I stood in it […]
I Am His Poem
So look in the mirror and pray for the grace To tear off the mask, see the art of your face. ~Michael Card in The Poem of Your Life When I wake up this morning, my bedroom is still pink. It’s been pink now for nine years plus. Every square inch of this house needs […]
Seasons of Serving and the Nature of Love
“I can’t,” I snapped. She faded back into the living room and left me alone with my pots and oils. And chopsticks. Newly married and still giddy from San Francisco and Chinatown, I planned my first dinner party from scratch–sweet and sour chicken, homemade egg rolls, and fried apple (?) somethings (I think) that kept […]
Through and Through Life: Gleaning in the Stones
“There’s a rabbit on the driveway.” I glanced out the window. Sure enough. A rabbit sat in the gravel at the edge of the driveway apron. I talked to it through the open window. It stopped nosing in the stone for a moment and looked my way, but was not moved. I marveled at how […]
And So It Begins
Faith Barista Bonnie asks us to write about “Finding the One.” So today I offer up this reworked repost as a shot of encouragement to remind us that God is at work in our lives even when we’re not looking or asking. April 1971. Only eighteen months into my nursing career and already burned out […]
