I bend and sort the clothes, turn socks and flip shirts inside out, one piece at a time. And I’m always amazed how much laundry we have each week. Laundry stained with spills, smeared with soil, and marked with the activity of long days. Stains from running and jumping and playing. From kneeling in the […]
When You Wonder if There is Purpose in Pain
She loses her job this week and walks away with one less key on her ring and a feeling of loss in her heart. It happens so fast. Abrupt, sudden, and unexpected. Everything becomes ordinary all at once, and none of it is easy at all. After years of giving with grace and mentoring with […]
How to Give Grace With Your Words
I walk in the room and I immediately react. I hear his tone the wrong way, assume a meaning he never intended, and respond with words I eventually regret. This is the mistake I make countless times… Failing to use my words for good, Missing the opportunity to give grace to the one who’s listening, […]
What I Learned {September 2013}
At the end of every month, Emily Freeman shares what she’s learned, and she hosts a link-up on her blog where everyone can meet and share what they’ve learned too. And I’m joining her today! So here, in no particular order, are 10 things I learned in September… 1. God’s goodness and mercy hunts us down. As I […]
Freedom Comes When We Reveal the Truth
The day my gown glides across the carpet, I believe I’ll be married forever. But reality turns out so much differently than I’d planned. In so many ways. Bad ways. And very good ways. Good ways only because of Him. But in those years amidst the guilt and shame, my heart longed for freedom. The freedom to […]
When You Wonder if His Mercy Can Find You Too
I wear it around my neck these days, this Word mercy, that changed everything for me. This richness of God, sent from the profoundness of His deep love. A generous love I can barely grasp– a kindness I’m still at a loss to comprehend. I remember a time I thought I actually understood it, in […]
For When You Need a Life of Peace {The Romans Project}
I memorize while I drive, at red lights and stop signs, these words of Paul which are soaking into my dry soul and reviving me each time I remember them. As we drive, the kids test me, stopping me if I make a mistake. And every Friday I record my voice reciting my learned verses, […]
When You’re Broken and Need Rebuilding
The moment feels final when misfortune levels you or failure swallows you. When guilt smothers you, The sturdy walls of your life fall down on you, Or fear grips you and will not let you go. I know. Because I lived it. And yet I’m still living to tell it … emotionally alive only because […]
When Your Climb Feels Invisible and Your Steps Small
Sometimes the small things matter most of all. Small steps. Small habits. Small thoughts. Small decisions. Step by step they change us over time, into something different and something new–something we never anticipated we’d become at all. And that’s the power of just doing the next thing. Not the big thing. But the small thing, […]
Sharing our Story: Beauty amidst Brokenness
Last December, I took a big leap and wrote my story out for the world, with the goal that just one person, who felt beyond hope, would know mercy could find them too. I asked God to allow me to know of just one person who was helped as a result of reading the words […]
