At this moment (along with many other moments) one of my neighbor kiddos is swinging in her backyard. She spends hours swinging – up and down, again and again. And again. It has to be peaceful for her, which is ironic because it is the squeakiest, most annoying-sounding swing in the entire universe! It’s enough ..read more

When families gather, each person plays his or her part. There is the wild and crazy one, the organized and orderly one, and the peacemaker in between. Throw in the matriarch and patriarch, the family member who keeps his or her distance, and the perpetually embittered and you may have a complete cast of characters ..read more

Did you do your homework? Did you? The reflection questions in the previous post turn your early-days-of-the-school-year attention away from your kiddo and onto you. Yes, you! Parents and guardians tend to focus heavily on our kids when something exciting is about to happen. We ask them: We might forget that focusing on an anxious ..read more

Dear Lord, Please could it be berry season forever? Could all lands be lands of perpetual strawberry and blueberry harvest? I wouldn’t mind. I’d trade it for root vegetable season any day of the week! Potatoes and parsnips are no fun in yogurt parfaits. This world is not as it should be. Berry season is temporary, much to my dismay. On the list of complaints you will hear today, this is on the low end. Better that you tend to war refugees, among them thousands of Ukrainian children snatched up by the Russian army, an injustice that should get all our hearts racing. Could you, Lord, deal with ..read more

Today is a 17th birthday at our house – the season of passing through the last step toward independence. In other words, there is a chance my grocery bill may be bearable in the foreseeable future! Even this far into the wilderness of parenting, it is impossible to remember the millions of moments now filed away as history. The scoop after scoop of sand in the sandbox, so many pushes on the swing, reading words, watching games, thousands of “goodnights” to end the day. And later, negotiating responsibilities, sitting fearfully in the passenger seat beside them, witnessing the changes impacted ..read more

Warning: Nostalgic Mom of High School Graduate Ahead “Tom, stay away from the edge.” “Tom, you’re closing in on danger over there.” “Tom, you’re raising your mom’s heart rate to a dangerous level.” He has always been the one to test the limits. One walk with him at Wind Canyon in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park was one walk too many! Even at 15 years old, I had to tell him to stop going up (not down) the hotel waterslide because he was creating a following with the impressionable littles in the pool. It’s a week of double graduations for this dare devil. Tomorrow is his graduation from ..read more

Haven’t you always wondered? Aren’t you dying to know what happens when preachers gather in the same space? Okay then, then humor me for a moment! When people whose livelihood is proclamation, that is, a public telling with words and deeds the true story of Jesus Christ, the in-breaking of God into our messy lives and world, we almost certainly do one thing. We who hover in hospital rooms with quiet prayers, who wrestle for hours and hours with ancient words on a page, who beg God to show up already, gather together and sing. We sing the old, old story that we love so much. We sing petitions ..read more

After ten weeks at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, our son completed basic training for the Army National Guard. When exactly did this milestone occur? I don’t know. This is one of my basic training learnings. #1) You do not get to know when things happen. For example, he arrived at the base the same day he left the airport back in February. But when did ten weeks of basic training begin? One week later? Two weeks later? Somewhere in between? Because the start date was a mystery, so was the end date. One Sunday in April, he told us without fanfare, “We finished basic training.” #2) The sequel to ..read more

Over the weekend, with a gallon of paint and some help from Amazon, I updated one of my kiddos’ bedrooms. It had been a while. A bright orange wall is cool when you’re five, but ten years later it’s just obnoxious. I had so much fun! I gave this kiddo four color options, washed an absurd amount of laundry in order to actually get to each wall, and listened to the Twins win while feeling quite victorious myself. Bedroom updates are a quick click away with two-day-ish delivery in these parts of the world. And quick is ideal. We are busy people, shuffling from one busy day to the next. Who has t ..read more

Prayer is sitting with God to listen to God ask: “Do you see it?” Prayer is taking your foot off the accelerator and sitting down without a device. It is sitting down with nothing else to do after deciding prayer is more important. Prayer is looking at your life with God in a way you cannot look with your own limited vision. You see only so far. God widens your view. Prayer is sitting beside God to peer at the broad landscape of your life. “Do you see it?” God asks you, pointing over there. “No,” you reply, because seeing life as God sees it is a lot to ask of you. “Okay,” God tries again. “L ..read more