Did you know that you can color your prayers? I had never thought of doing this before. But, this week I listened on the edge of my seat as a fellow  Jesus-follower shared her story of how she's learned to color her prayers and dance her prayers and draw her prayers and paint her prayers. As a child of the Creator God, who has been crafted in His image, it's just in me to want to be creative, too. God is always seeking relationship with the people that He's made, and since prayer is simply talking to Him and listening to Him, it makes sense that there is more than one way to communicate with Him. Yes, there's the closing your eyes and bowing your head and folding your hands kind of praying. And the walking along the road and just talking to God kind of praying. And the driving[...]

Today was a harder sort of day. Some days just are. It's hard being a person. You know, when emotions go all awry on you and don't exactly obey. When you're dealing with your own misgivings, your own failures, and trying hard to push through fears. By the end of the day, a girl can get so worn out. So, sometime when I was unwrapping the baked potatoes for supper and checking facebook for the umpteenth time (insert rabbit trail: I hate facebook, I just want to shut the whole thing down. But, then again, I love the people. I would miss them)...anyways, sometime in there somewhere I asked God to please send me some encouragement. Some  help. I needed Him to come. Then I turned on Josh Garrels. Music just helps so much. Good music does. So, tonight I'm giving you his song, and marrying h[...]

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 [...]

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[...]

Sometimes, I wake up in the quiet of the night and I'm scared. It's peaceful and still all around me, but I've got these noisy thoughts running through my head. These pestering fears. So, I pray because I know it deep in my bones--that God is just right there.And sometimes I lift up my hand because I want to reach out to touch Him, to grasp His hand in the dark, but He wants me to walk by faith and not by sight. So, I reach but I can't see or feel Him, at least not His skin. But, I've got His Spirit somewhere deep inside my chest, and I've got His Presence all around, so I reach out for Him with my aching heart, and I know He's close at hand. Last night, Brent must have been anxious, too, because he woke up soon after me, and we just found each other in the dark and started to pray. We did[...]

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[...]

I need You, Lord. Every hour I need You. More like every moment. Though sometimes I walk around in this stone-cold stupor, oblivious and unaware.But, right now I feel it, my desperate need. That God-ache that no other thing will satiate. Just You, Your love, Your Spirit filling all my soul-holes. All my sore and hollowed out empty places. I'm parched and You come to let me taste and see. That You, in all Your glory are good. You are good but You're not tame. I should fear You, the way all the wild life fears a roaring lion. You are strong and You are fierce. But, still You're good. And I need You. I have always needed You. Oh God, please come. Could You come right now? Your voice, it shakes the wilderness. Like loud claps of thunder and bolts of lightening, it rips open the sky. Your excla[...]

Sometimes it takes these quiet moments of them falling fast asleep before it occurs to me, and I have to catch my breath, just how head-over-heels madly in love I am with them. These children of mine--God's little masterpieces. Growing so big already and I've only had them for a little while. When I was three and a half, I don't know where I was. At times I was with relatives and sometimes living with complete strangers because my mom would walk into a house and drop me off. Often I was in and out of foster homes, always at the mercy of whatever grown-ups my birth parents or the social workers left me with. So, I gaze at him and marvel how I ever got to grow up and have him at all. When Gideon was just a baby, I remember how I couldn't stop staring at him. Couldn't believe how beautiful he[...]

 Lord, You've given me a new day. And I can see that You're up to good things in the world, because You've called Your people to love. You say to us, "Do to others what you'd have them do to you." (Matthew 7:12) And I see that it's good that You tell us this, because this world is an awry place and it fixes things when we respond out of love.But, God, in and of myself, I don't have love. I mean, I can be nice. I can be polite. I can put up a good front when people are around, but when it's just You and me...well, You see. You see all the ugly on my insides. Seems I only love people when it's convenient. When they don't require too much of me. When it fits into my schedule. But, that's not really love. Isn't love made from sacrificial stuff? The kind that gives away, expecting nothing [...]