a planted life | learning to love
Today I got in my car and drove away from my house alone. Again. However many Sundays there are in 28 years, that's how many Sundays (minus a few Christmas and Easter Sundays) I've been going to church alone. Almost every Sunday I have to fight the numbness that threatens. Going to church every Sunday... Continue Reading →
Remembering eternal, historical and experiential truths about God
Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com I’ve been in a church since the week after I was born. Every church I’ve been part of has impacted my life in a unique way. Like an arm is different from the liver, these churches were all very different. Among them were bad teachings. But at each church... Continue Reading →
Photo on Pexels.com An invisible weight presses, keeping me from lifting my head many days. I’m looking down, backing away, shrinking into obscurity, feeling like Naomi, "I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty." (Ruth 1:21) And in those dark, heavy, brow-furrowed days, I've learned to cry out. Lift my head.... Continue Reading →
My sons are now sixteen and eighteen, but the days of bending over to care for their needs seems like it was just yesterday. The years I spent investing my life in theirs felt like a mix of chaos, cherished moments and sheer exhaustion at the time. My mothering isn’t over, it’s just entered another... Continue Reading →
Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com When my thoughts go to your younger years and I hear your deep voice cursing the time, my eyes fill with hot tears and I wonder if singing Jesus Loves Me with you as a toddler was enough. I lit a fire this New Year and watched the hot... Continue Reading →
As much as it depends on me I'll lose, I'll defer, I'll wait. Not because I'm weak, even though I am. Not because I'm less than, even though I happily consider you greater. Not because I'm not able, not willing, not right. But because I want to walk with you through the night. Through the... Continue Reading →
You could shine your face on me and I would be rescued from this degree of pain I can’t escape. But you don’t. You show me trees and leaves and shine light through the breeze and make fire in the branches with rays from the expanse of your power. And I’m tired. But I’ll wait.... Continue Reading →
A Culture Born from our "Of Works-ness" I'm listening to Dane Ortlund's audiobook version of Gentle and Lowly- The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers on my commute to and from work. Driving home the other day, the narrator read the title of the 20th chapter, "Our lawish hearts. His lavish heart." And as... Continue Reading →
This morning before I headed out the door for work, when you were about to jump in your truck and drive to school, I looked up at your face anxious about what you don’t want to face, curious about what you won’t say until it’s too late and then you’ll want to find a way... Continue Reading →
Cultivating Faithfulness 