Child, lift up your head. Raise your eyes up to the hills and look to the horizon. There’s new light breaking in. Hold it there, in your gaze. Let it warm your face. You’ve got these eyes that can see by faith, the unseen. Everything that can be touched and held is perishing but there are things that keep breathing and remain. Truth. Hope. Peace. Love. I’ve seen the way you struggle here, like a child in the long black night, crying out for momma. Holy Spirit, draw us close. Teach us a song to sing. Open your faith-eyes, my love. Let your eyes adjust to the light. Some distance from here, there’s an ocean, deep, and waves that can’t stop pounding on the shore. Those swells grab hold of shells and glass and little bits of coral, then tumble them around until all the edg[...]

Some days I walk around feeling inconsolably lonely. And I always think that it's strange. Because I have these people around me that love me well and love me deep and that I love immensely. Namely, my husband and kids. And I've got a fair amount of friends. And a cell phone and email and facebook to keep up with the ones I can't see face to face, much. But, still, I go through these phases of just feeling so lonesome. I can be smack dab in the middle of all the folks I love and yet, there's this sadness, this feeling that something isn't quite right. That somehow I'm not complete or that I'm not at home. And when I try to put my finger on it, I find that I'm ravishingly hungry for Someone else. Someone other. Like, I'm starved for God. I know. It's strange. And when I read the B[...]

Someday you might wake up and find it hard to love. You know, hard to love those folks right there in your life. In your lap. Or the ones from your past that are miles away. And you may not know what to do about that. Because you know you ought to love. And you know that love heals things and transforms circumstances and love can change people, but you might look inside that heart of yours and notice that the tank is dry. And you may not know where to go for replenishing. There is a well where you can draw from endless springs. There is a God with a heart so full that it overflows and He knows how to pour love into empty, dried up places. But, you'll have to go to Him. And it'll do you good to tell Him that you just don't have what it takes to love. Or to forgive. Or to forbea[...]

We're resting here, now. All of us are resting. Even the kitty. Well, I'm writing and everyone else is resting, but writing is restorative for me. Especially when my mind is busy thinking about lots of things. The last few mornings have been rough. Maybe it's because we're getting antsy from all the snow and cold.  I've got this little boy with all this energy and he doesn't understand why he can't tear through the house at full whirl boy speed and yell at the top of his lungs and crash his cars into the walls. He really needs to go outside, but the snow is practically up to his waist and it's just too doggone cold. So, there's been a lot of yelling and wailing, sobbing and stomping and I've sort of been at a loss. Except that God is here with us and I've been asking Him how [...]

Yesterday the wind was very windy. My friend tells me how she noticed it whipping everything into winter ready shape. And we chat about how though we can't see the wind, we can see all that it does as we look around and about. I'm reminded of a verse I read that talks about the Holy Spirit, how He, too, is like the wind. (John 3:6-10) The wind rushes this way and that. We hear it rustling the tall grasses and whipping through the trees, but we can't see where it comes from and we don't exactly know where it's going. So it is with the Spirit of God. We can't see Him. We can't reach out to touch Him or hold a part of Him in our hand. But we see His movements, sometimes this rushing, sometimes this gentle sort of breathing. And we know He's there because we see what He does as we look up and [...]