A Clean Slate

Yesterday was the day. The day to decompress, reorganize and clean out all that was the clutter of the Holidays and of 2014 in general. I do this every year at about this time.  My hands find themselves busy, tangibly working toward something that I can feel crowding in my heart.  I took down trees, dusted shelves high enough that required a ladder and washed windows. I even bought one...

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The Shoebox

(Written at the time of Operation Christmas Child's annual Shoebox Drive in early December.) You see them everywhere this time of year. Those neat little red and green shoeboxes are passed out at churches, grocery stores, book stores and various marketplaces. All with the intention of being taken home and filled with goodies for an precious little soul on another continent far away. Last Sunday...

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The First Christmas

“There it is Mary, can you see it?”  She lifted her head and nodded. Surely they were almost there and he was right. They had traveled for so long now that everything was beginning to look the same. It wouldn’t have been so much of a weighty task of a trip but there was this man next to her. A man she barely knew-had really never known fully-and he was suddenly everywhere she was, all of the...

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To Know Him Better

“Is this the day my stent comes out mama?”  Five a.m. came early and my boy wiped the sleep from his eyes as we piled into the car. “Yes buddy. Just go back to sleep and I’ll wake you when we get to the hospital ok?” I gave him his fuzzy blanket and buckled his booster seat.  It all seemed so routine to him now and while that should have made my heart thankful for the ease of the process,...

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The Best Gift to Give Away

As much as I love the lights, all the twinkling bright, clear and colored red and green lights, they are only a small part of Christmas. The trees and the garland too make me marvel for hours. Tiny little manger scenes and the vintage photos of Santa Claus make our homes warm with the spirit of the season. Christmas music tickles my ears and candy cane candles tickle my nose. There are parties...

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Finding Christ in Christmas

It was an evening we’d had on the calendar for weeks.  The night to drink hot chocolate while riding around looking at Christmas lights in surrounding neighborhoods is always a highlight for us this time of the year. We wear our pajamas too.  We’re classy like that. I’d like to say that the pajama thing is a total nostalgic move but that wouldn’t be completely honest. Truth is,...

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Seventy Times Seven

She lay in her bed, eyes open wide and watched the minutes slowly tick by. She should have been asleep hours ago but peace wasn’t coming. Tomorrow was going to be busy, why couldn’t she just fall asleep? Tick tock. Tick tock. She played and replayed an earlier conversation in her head and knew that she hadn’t gotten it quite right.   Judgment’s had been made. Harsh words had been...

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Pointing The Way

I'm not one to watch the news a lot, therefore I'm usually only mildly aware of world events at a surface level. Sometimes it's not even that much and I'm completely unaware. Unfortunately though, I would need a rock larger than the one I'm living under to miss the case otherwise known as Ferguson that's been in the news lately. What a tragedy. I always find it saddening when the enemy is able...

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The Beauty of Broken Trust

"I trust you and daddy and Jesus." Her big blue eyes peered into mine and I knew she meant what she said. She's four years old and she already understands that there are boundaries and sometimes boundaries can be broken. So in her mind, for the time being anyway, it's easiest to just trust those that she knows all too well will take care of her: mommy, daddy and Jesus. She's a thinker for sure,...

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Glory In The Garbage

I stood in front of the kitchen sink, hot tears pouring down my face and felt like a failure once more. "This is not how Martha said to do it," I told myself. "I've failed again." (Martha would be Ms. Martha Peace and she'd been speaking to me through the pages of a book I had been reading. A book titled, The Excellent Wife.) It had been a whole lot of a day and it wasn't about to be over yet. You...

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The Hope Within Us

The excitement over Spirit Week's "Tacky Tuesday" was at an all time high yesterday morning. I let my littles happily dress themselves in the clothes of their choice, fed them breakfast and then shepherded four little feet out the door to start our day.  Our day was normal, just like a lot of other folks around town. There was nothing too horrible and nothing too fabulous; we just enjoyed...

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