But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” I take a lot of comfort in this verse this morning. There are impossible situations at every turn, messy relationships, messy health, messy politics, messy everything. My heart and mind wake up feeling messy with other people’s strife. My email is messy […]
The Self-Restraint of God: Spiritual Boundaries Part 4
At the end of the last post I wrote: It makes me feel deeply safe to know that God does not force his love upon me, to know he does not force himself upon me. This is the deepest of all our theologies, to me, this one that says, quite simply, God is love. Love […]
Boundaries in Marriage: Sacred Smallness, Real Life Is Now
(post #2) see list of all posts here Perameters. Thinking of perameters around writing causes me to think of boundaries. And the very word boundaries always makes me think of marriage. I came into marriage with a poor sense of boundaries. I wasn’t quite sure where I ended and where another person began, and as […]
What Possible Good Could Ever Come From This Thing In My Life?
There was this moment in which all my fears twisted into something tighter and heavier than I could hold. David and I had just collapsed into bed after an exhausting night of packing, and our conversation tipped into all of the Unknowns. Less than two weeks away from filling our moving truck, we were about to make the scariest change […]
Mourn The Shame – a story about comfort, part 3 (survivor songs #21)
A story about comfort, part three. For part one, see A Lie That Fell Like A Curse. For part two, see “That’s Not True.” ___________ :: the following may contain triggers for survivors of sexual abuse :: ___________ _________________ No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm-I will come to […]
“That’s Not True” – a story about comfort, part 2 (survivor songs #19)
A story about comfort, part two. For part one, see here: A Lie That Fell Like A Curse. __________________ Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping. The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer. Psalm 6:8,9 “If you ever […]
The Lie That Fell Like A Curse (survivor songs # 13)
A story about comfort, part one. Comfort: I hear the word and I think thick, cheesy casseroles, warm sweaters, my husband’s arms. I think steaming chai on a rainy day in Oregon. I think conversation – companionship – with friends. But when I consider the concept of comfort, a completely different image comes to […]
Well, My Dad Is A Husband…
Copied from Facebook…a story about my daughters. The girls are playing “Wedding” in the garage with their neighborhood girlfriends. A host of arguments are patiently being talked through as some girls say, “well, this is my third marriage because the first two didn’t work out,” and others say, “yeah, my first husband was a bad […]
A Marriage Song
A Marriage Song by G.K. Chesterton Why should we reck of hours that rend While we two ride together? The heavens rent from end to end Would be but windy weather, The strong stars shaken down in spate Would be a shower of spring, And we should list the trump of fate And hear a […]
Tow Truck Letters and The Lover Who Never Relents
The day we left China–a bit more than 12 years ago now–I packed into the pocket of our laptop bag two invaluable treasures: one, the journal I kept throughout all the months of my falling-in-love and early married life with David; and two, my “tow truck letters”–small scraps of paper on which David had penned […]