Friday Soul Food: Mentored by Dead People
Since I started following Jesus more than thirty years ago, I have had one mentor. One. This might be because I have a strong personality and other women wrongly assume I don’t need input. It might be because I’ve always been part of churches with a younger...
Our Family’s Advent Failures—and Why this Year’s Advent Book Will Get Read
Apparently, either my husband and I are non-traditionalists when it comes to Advent or really bad at following through. For the first twenty years of our married life, we had both high hopes and good intentions on December 1st. We’d buy an Advent calendar or put a...
2014 Holiday Book Buying Guide
Since this week officially kicks off holiday buying season, I thought I’d offer some ideas for the readers on your lists. Please add your own to the comment section. AdventSarah Arthur, Light Upon Light. A different kind of Advent book. Delicious poetry, fiction,...
Friday Soul Food: Why We Hide When Life Gets Hard
I’d like to turn the clock back twenty years. I didn’t anticipate that the fifth decade of my life would include so much loss. Two funerals a month apart for friends who died from cancer. A relative having a diagnostic test this very hour to determine if she...
Friday Soul Food: Over the Falls at UNGRIND
Two autumns ago, our world unraveled. My husband’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died. Our youngest son took a helmet to the neck in a football game and spent the next four weeks convalescing. I ran over someone’s dog. Our neighbor fell off his...
When He Has the Headache: Navigating Divese Sexual Desires in Marriage
I did not relish the possibility that I was the only Christian woman who had a stronger sex drive than my husband, but for the first decade of our marriage, that’s exactly how I felt. When I shared my dilemma with close friends, I typically got blank stares. One...
The Sacred Gift of Listening: Gifted for Leadership
"It might be cancer.” When those words were spoken, it wasn’t clear who was more stunned—Michael or me. He was our beloved small group pastor. A true people person, Michael was the lubricant which kept staff friction to a minimum. Quick to laugh, he loved good steak,...
I Don’t Want to Doubt: Guest Post for Jen Pollock Michel’s site
I don’t want to doubt. Since I started following Jesus thirty-four years ago, God has consistently spoken to me through the written word, creation, and the faint whispers of the Spirit. Our relationship is thankfully not one way. On most days, there’s a stream of...
The Art of Celebration at Relevant Magazine
My husband and I had the honor of officiating our eldest son’s wedding this summer. After the ceremony, all one hundred guests gathered under an enormous tent in our front yard where tables laden with hundreds of sunflowers and cosmos, heaps of perfectly prepared...
Friday Soul Food: Fall Photography in Vermont
Something a little out of the ordinary. No hillside blazing with color or white church steeple interjecting itself among the orange leaves. One hour on one acre (mostly on my knees) with my Canon 7D, macro lens, and a tripod. OK. I admit it. This last flower wasn't...