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[...]

I sweep up tid bits of paper into piles. The paper Hopey cut up into scraps to stuff into her teacups and heap onto her plastic pink plates to feed her babes.

We went to Arkansas to see our family, but we timed it just right so we could go to my friend’s wedding.

A friend came over today and brought us lunch and a freezer meal. Wasn't that nice? People have been overwhelming us with love in all these tangible ways since little Samuel came along. Shoot, we may need to have another kid soon when all this excitement wears off.No. Never mind. We need sleep. Anyways, as my friend sat across the table and rocked Samuel, she asked how everything was going. You know, the transition from two kids to three. I assessed everything for a moment, because I've hardly just begun this new adventure, but in my fuzzy, sleep-deprived brain, it sort of dawned on me. I realized that truthfully, I'm just trying to find my way again. Even here in my own house, with my own kids, with the grocery list always going and the toys that keep reappearing on the living room floor,[...]

I didn't know how being a mama would change me. When I quit the work at the office and wondered if I'd miss all the grown-ups, I didn't know how much I'd really be okay. I'd be just fine teaching a little boy his letters and how to make friends and a little girl how to nurture life and run fast and wild and free.My email box got a lot thinner, after the walls of my belly grew out and people weren't writing, needing me to do all these "important" things, but somehow I found all this delight in scrubbing mac-n-cheese off plastic Thomas the train plates and changing little people's britches for the umpteenth time.I really, really like being a mama.I like the part where you cuddle up next to the little boy who grew big inside of you and gave you your first stretch marks, and continues to stret[...]

 There is a God who always ever was and He weaves His Story into our days. This same God who conducts the wind, who made the moss grow rampant beneath the maples, the One who fills up heaven, He also dwells here with us, in our one fleeting life. And these days, all these running together days, though chocked full of common, ordinary, seemingly insignificant moments, are not some erratic succession of events, a mere twenty four hours in which we plod along and aimlessly exist. No, these days, each and every one of them is brimfull of meaning and purpose. Today matters because the God who exists is alive and well and He is not confined to church houses or sacred assemblies, but He is found here in all the gritty, humdrum slices of life. He calls Himself the great I AM. Doesn't tha[...]

The weather has turned cold on me and I've become this shameful wimp, preferring the warmth of the great indoors to the adventure of the great outdoors. We haven't gone out in three days. I think that's a record. I'm not exactly proud.  But, my artist friend tells me that there are so many good things about the cold and winter coming. She tells me how everything has it's own season, and the cold is for tucking in and being more still and quiet and for making art. She says it's when the creatives get all creative. So, I look forward to that--making art. And I've got this book writing project, so I've taken a little time each day to craft with words. It feels good, to look out my window and see the sun but still feel warm in here, all tucked away and eager to create.I've felt [...]

I've got this little girl and she's an awful lot like me. Now, I'm not about to call her Maggie Jr. I wouldn't do that to her. But, I have called her "Silly Goose," just like my mama called me.  For one thing, she laughs when it’s totally inappropriate. And it’s not just this little giggle, but this loud guffaw and she’s so unashamed to release all her joy, right out of the bottom of her belly. And she’s got this wild streak. Like, when I tell her for the umpteenth time not to crawl on the back of the couch and she does it anyway and then turns to see if I’m looking and there’s that gleam in her eye.  Then, off she runs, covering her tail and screaming like a school-kid being chased on the playground. I don’t know how to get her to see that I really do MEAN it! She's only two an[...]

In the early hours of the morning, while all was still silent and quite dark, I jolted wide awake with this sharp pain in my abdomen. Now, I realize that it was just some gas perhaps, (as embarrassing as that is to admit) but at the moment I prepared myself for a trip to the ER for a ruptured appendix. The pain itself didn’t actually last long, but something about it got me to thinking why it is that I really want to live. I think about how I want to especially be here for Gideon and Hope. Those little people who follow me around everywhere I go and yell, “MOMMY” a jillion times a day and wreck the house I try to keep clean and ask so many questions that my brain goes numb. I want to be here for them. Because in spite of all the ruckus and all the chaos and all the need they have, I really[...]