2013 was a painful year for “community” for me. I spent much of the year pursuing relationship with people all over the country, sending emails, having coffee, inviting people in for dinner, sharing in group settings, even beginning to attend…
What Love Looks Like
Oh, the days when I drew lines around my faith To keep you out, to keep me in, to keep it safe And oh, the sense of my own self entitlement To say who’s wrong or won’t belong or cannot…
From One Mama to Another…
“Do you take your kids to church?” My breath stopped as I scrambled for an answer. I was standing in the pet store chatting with a very nice former graphic designer who had just helped me obtain a photo of…
It Never Hurts to Ask
I used to live by this mantra – “it never hurts to ask.” I chanted it to myself as I walked the streets of a historic Virginia town at eighteen, knocking on doors with my little writing notebook, meeting new…
A “Better” Service
“You can do God a better service by…” The rest of her words didn’t fade the way I needed them to fade, didn’t give me the grace to fail, to fall down, to not be enough. All I could hear…
A New Nose
Pip just asked God for a “circle nose.” The adult in me says “look out, God might give it to you and how would He do that – YIKE” and then I realized that when we pray like children, He…
The hardness of tenderness…
It is hard to have a tender heart, when it seems the world is out to misunderstand you, when you don’t fit anywhere, even with other believers, when people like you or don’t like you based on what you DO…
the dreams we dream with broken hearts
Last night, I dreamed a hard one. I dreamed I was happy – sooooo happy – and then the happiness shattered, and I cried in my dream. Wept. Sobbed. Wailed. I couldn’t walk or be strong or keep going, things…
The Journal
I looked at leather-bound journals at Barnes & Noble the other day when we went in. The kids wanted to play there, to look at the books, to absorb the general atmosphere of one of their favorite places – and…
Groan
Sometimes when I go out, I get the feeling that nobody sees me. I think other people feel that nobody sees them too; they don’t know I watch them walk past me, wonder what their world is like, wonder if…