What are you giving up, and what are you taking up?
So often we reduce the season of Lent, if we acknowledge it at all, to giving up some indulgence. But this "spiritual spring" is also a season of "taking up." We take up our cross, [...]
Spring Cleaning for the Soul
Ash Wednesday, 2011 The horizon—the color of ashes—promises a storm. The muddled snow, which had been melting, is arrested by the returning cold. Lent, a somber season, seems the practice even of my leafless gray [...]
Kingdom come
Stumbled across this blog via Google alerts. It's always nice to know people are reading and quoting my writing, but more than that I appreciated what this pastor had to say about the very present [...]
Choosing to trust
Living with teenagers is like sailing a small ship on a rolling ocean. You have to constantly adjust to keep your balance. It’s full of surprises: like last week, when my daughter asked if I’d [...]
Daily Bread
For the last fifteen years or so, my husband and I have been self-employed. Buying our own health insurance, working odd hours. Chaos is normal, but so is freedom. The flexibility worked for us as [...]
Telling our stories
I believe there is power in sharing your story, in naming the work of God in your life. When we listen to one another's stories, when we ask the question "Where have you seen God [...]
Greetings from cold-lanta
The weather here in Atlanta turned cold the day I got here--the southern sunshine giving a false impression. The natives keep apologizing, taking personal responsibility, apparently, for the cool temperatures. I'm writing this from a [...]
Giving what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose.
I love to cook, given leisure enough. I make family meals a priority—we try to gather around the table each night, even if it’s for something simple. But busy nights with carpooling and obligation often [...]
Yadah, yadah, yadah…
I'm a word girl, and so I'm having a lot of fun working on a book about words in the Bible. Right now I'm working on the chapter on the word "praise. " There are [...]
Finishing things
One of Anne Lamott’s best pieces of advice for writers is simple but profound: “make a commitment to finishing things.” Why? Well, publishers don’t buy unfinished manuscripts, for one thing. But also, writers need to [...]