The flowers were attracting flies. I wish I could give a great, heartfelt beginning to this story. I wish I had some spiritual nudge, some inclination that someone needed these flowers in that very moment. But where this story starts is… I had a lot of really beautiful flowers in my house, and they were … More The Giver of Free Flowers
Jesus wept. It is the shortest verse in the Bible, and for some reason, when we’re kids, that’s the detail that we focus on. It seems so cool, that there is a two-worded sentence in the Bible. It becomes a main question in our Sunday School trivia games. What is the shortest verse in the … More Jesus Wept Too
You used to pray Bob Dylan lyrics over me when I was a baby. I blame a lot of my idiosyncrasies on this fact. Why does my heart memorize the lyrics of 1960’s music as though it is the secret to life? Probably because of Bob Dylan. Why is 80% of my readership about 30 … More Forever Young
I never asked for ten steps before I took my free kick. I never waited for the full ten steps when the ref granted it to me without my asking. High school soccer…. It was another lifetime ago. The pre-wrap headbands, the electric tape to hold my shin guards in place, the maddest and happiest … More Still Kicking
“You take him, and I’ll go too.” I spoke these words out loud about a year and a half ago. I spoke them to my maker out of pain, defiance. I spoke them from a place of entitlement, a place of living a life where I could always achieve the things that I wanted to … More Anger 7: Why Have I Beaten This Dead Horse?
“Can you play, Raise a Hallelujah?” I sat up a from the hard pullout couch that I was attempting to make a bed out of, and I looked over at him. I didn’t know if I heard him correctly. I didn’t know if I heard him at all. He laid perfectly still in his bed … More Anger 6: Finishing the Race
“Here comes the sun,” the long-haired tattoo artist said right before the roar of the machine cut on. I cringed at how impersonal it all was, at how thoughtlessly he threw out words that had come to mean so much to me. I wanted to hit him. If it wasn’t for the sting of my … More Anger 5: I’ll Follow The Sun
My tulips sprouted this week. This shouldn’t be that significant… I mean, it’s March, most tulips sprout in March. But my heart sank a little when I pulled into my driveway, and I saw the little green stocks peeking out of the ground. Andrew’s dad and sister planted these tulip bulbs for us last fall. … More Anger 4: Tulips and Resolution
Just a moment. We are all just one moment—good or bad—away from our whole life shifting course—good or bad. I think about this a lot when people look at me with those sad eyes. I think about how close I was to being shattered at a time when I didn’t even know it. Just a … More Anger 3: The Moments in Our Story
Job… in case you were wondering. In case last week when I said, “No one ever sends you to Isaiah in the midst of tragedy,” you asked, “Well, then where do they send you?” In my experience, the answer is Job. I think this is an appropriate response, really. I don’t think Job is a … More Anger 2: Not That Job-y
