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Monday 6th May 2013
How To Build Your Dream House
Dear House-Builder, This is the letter I would have written to you eleven years ago, when you started framing up the walls of our home, if I knew then what I know now. Remember how I fussed over whether to lay tile or wood floors, whether to paint the kitchen that dark Georgia brick, or... Read More
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Monday 8th April 2013
When You’re Scared and Need a Shepherd
She gave birth on a Monday. And just before the last of the three lambs breathed her first earthly breath, the ewe convulsed. The mother’s whole self shook, and the vet said later that she probably had a stroke. The mama survived, but was paralyzed. And she couldn’t take care for ...
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Monday 18th March 2013
A Farmer, His Wife, Our Yucky Past, and How God Took Us Anyway
It takes a lot to pry a farmer from a barn full of pigs for a whole day. And let’s face it: It takes an honest-to-goodness miracle for a farmer to leave the barn for a whole three days. But he does leave. Maybe it’s because the farmer is the miracle. Yes, I suspect that is why he ...
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Monday 4th February 2013
Birthday Surprise
Remembering these words today, written a year ago, as we consider the gift of our days, and the meaning of a full life … Great Grandma’s funeral is today. *** I turn 40 next month, the official gateway to a place called “over the hill.” My husband smirks when he ...
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Thursday 31st January 2013
The Pain and Beauty of Saying Goodbye
So, it turns out that Eunice Lee was mortal after all. I did wonder. Which sounds so silly. I know that. I mean, Grandma Lee made it 99 trips around the sun, and a part of you knew that every time that you visited her, it might be the last time. There’s a science to that... Read More
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Friday 16th November 2012
A Time to Kill and a Time to Heal … {To Everything}
“Is she going to be okay, Mom?” my daughter whispered as we stood under the morning Iowa sun, while leaning against the calf pen. “She isn’t going to die, is she?” Lydia, 10, looked at me with pooling eyes. On the other side of the pen, a weak and feverish calf groaned this long, aching... Read More
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Tuesday 2nd October 2012
A Letter to My Father
Dear Dad, I love that sound. It’s your pickup-truck tires crunching the gravel on the driveway, right outside our garage door. I hear that glad sound in the spring, when craggy trees burst forth with buds, then again when those same trees blush with autumn. This is the sound of you ...
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Sunday 30th September 2012
The High Calling of a Farmer
The girls and I trace crackling gravel roads to bring our favorite farmer a drink. We park by the barbed wire and climb the half-naked hill. Up on this bluff, I feel exposed, too. A stripping away. With less of myself, I see more of God. The hillside fields out here by the river are... Read More
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Tuesday 14th August 2012
Faith, Miracles and Modern-Day Fools
Sometimes, the miracle is faith itself – - that people would believe in spite of the suffering. - that Christians cling to the truth when the world tells us the anchor won’t hold in the storm. - that we stand firm, when the world says our faith is a lie, pointing to this rancorous ...
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Sunday 5th August 2012
When Life Isn’t a Piece of Cake, God has Still Got It
Life on planet Earth isn’t always a piece of cake. That may very well be the understatement of the day. But sometimes, you’ve just got to eat the cake anyway. The girls light the candles on their father’s birthday cake. It’s decorated with fluffy green cornstalks, ...
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Midwife to Hope by Dea
One thing I do know is that women need women to help them believe that they can make it through pain into the broad place of peace.
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Holding the Story
For the High Calling: “I had over-yessed myself.”