Last night we sat around our friend’s dinner table. These friends who always include us in all their kid’s birthday parties, like we’re just part of the family or something. They’ve got this wooden table and they always have to pull up another folding table because there’s so many of us and we can’t all fit, but somehow we do. My friend, Deb, makes the best food. It’s not that she loves making food, it’s just that she loves us and she knows that people feel loved when they get to share about their day or a funny story from the past or a dream they have over a steaming bowl of chicken curry soup. And whenever we leave their place, Brent and I always walk away feeling a little more healed. Like, we didn’t know we were aching for something until the need was met. These friends of[...]

Every night I tuck my babes in to bed. And it never fails, they always need a dozen things before they can drift off to sleep. No, they really do need them. I can tell because there is this certain sort of exasperation in their voices, that goes along with those begging pleas. For one thing, they need a snack. For Hopey, it's usually cereal, in a bowl, without any milk. The rainbow kind. And Gideon always asks for toast, so I bring him bread, all warm and buttered. Then they need a drink of water. Just one more drink, actually.   Hopey usually asks for just one more after that because she is for real, seriously thirsty and she might just perish if she doesn't get another gulp. And of course, they want a story so if I'm not too overwhelmingly exhausted, I let them pick out a li[...]

Some days are darker than others. Today the sky skuds up with clouds and while I'm thankful for the rain, I wrestle with angst. Because on my insides, in here in my heart, I resonate with the sky--an endless stretch of gray and a little foreboding, too. Headlines can do that to you. I've read plenty of heart-break this week and honestly, I don't know how to live between the lines. Those lines that hem us in on all sides here--all the joy on the one hand, running right alongside all the pain. So, I sweep up yesterday's grime off the kitchen floor and I cry a little. And then I glance over at my kids with their eyes brimming, an eager exhilaration, and I listen as they tell me what they want to learn this school year. Gideon, he wants to find out how trains work, and jet planes and rac[...]

It's funny. I've been writing on this blog for about five years now. And I recently wrote a book that will come out in August. And yet, the last few days, this has been my prayer, "Lord, teach me how to write. I don't even know how to write." It's not that I don't know how to type words out on a screen. All of us can do that. But, when I come here to this space, I have your faces in my mind and I want to give you my heart, and sometimes I don't know how to do that. I see my friends who are skeptics. Atheists and agnostics. I see my Wiccan friends. My New Age friends. My Jesus-following friends. And my friends who don't know what they believe and don't honestly care. So, I see a whole sea of faces and I don't even know who to write to. But, my friend, Kinsei, teaches me so muc[...]

Do you ever get lost in your day? If you happen to be in the same season of life as I am, you might find yourself standing a little bewildered in the middle of your kitchen, as your five year old and nearly four year old are on their hands and knees on the linoleum, simultaneously wailing at the top of their lungs because of the wretched disappointment in which their lives have turned out. You know, because your boy doesn’t like the toast with “nuts” in it and your girl seriously needs her chocky milk “warmed up.” All the while, your eight month old is pulling all the cook-books off the shelf for the umpteenth time. A momma can feel so lost before 10 a.m. And if you’re not careful, everything will ream out of control from there and you’ll only get more lost-er. (No, that’s not a [...]

This morning I woke up, sat up in bed a little and peered out the opening in my window shades. I confess. I groaned. I groaned because the tree limbs were laced back up in white and the yard was all covered in snow, and I was thinking it should be spring. Warm, green and growing spring. But, no sooner had I groaned when this sing-songy voice came rollicking back into my head. The voice of my momma when I was little as she was trying to teach me that each day was a gift and that I could give thanks and still find the good in things. The voice that would say, “Remember! This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice, and be glad in it!” (from Psalm 118:24) Yes, she’d say it and I’d roll my eyes. Yes, now that I’m a grown-up, I still hear that voice and those words and I know i[...]

When I was born, I had a different momma. And I don't know the circumstances of her life, exactly, when she first conceived me and then carried me around in her tummy before I was birthed out and into her arms. I just know that she was broken. Painfully so. But, still, she gave me life and she kept giving me life as she held me close and let me nurse, my eyes blinking awake in that hospital room, adjusting to all the light. I remember her well. The last time I saw her, I was five, and I can still vividly recall her giving me the white birthday cake with the blue roses made out of icing. She had her problems and her addictions, but when she was sober, she was gentle and loving and kind. When she wasn't sober, she was angry and cried a lot so I sat on the floor and cried, too. I re[...]

Today had a lot of good in it, but there was a lot of hard, too. The waking up, knowing that there would be dishes to clean and loads of laundry to wash, and bins of clothes to sort, and a kitchen floor that desperately needed swept. I felt like I was wading through cereal crumbs and dried up mac-n-cheese and broken crayons and lost pieces of art. When you walk around hearing crunching noises, you hope to goodness that nobody pops in for a surprise visit. You just gotta set your nose to the grindstone and get crackin', Jackin. So, I made my mental list of all the need-to-dos and told myself that I should keep trying to teach Gideon to read today, and that I should potty-train Hope, like for real this time, and before I knew it, I was over the stove, scrubbing gunk off the burners, wonderin[...]

Lord, You see. You know how I've got a mess on my hands again. Seems these years are the wrecky years. The ones in which I try awful hard to scrub the grime, to pick up the piles, to sort through the stuff and to bring order back from chaos. It's hard, though. Seems pointless. 'Cause the next day, here I'll be, doing it all over again.But, I can hear You, Lord. I hear You say You're present with me. Right in the middle of the muddled up mess. Neither a wrecky heart nor a wrecky house, frighten You away. Instead, You work with me to restore Shalom. That deepest, wholest peace. And I read how Your world was once right and good but sin entered in and wrecked up the place. And how, one day, Your Kingdom will come and there won't be any more of that blasted law of entropy--all things always fal[...]