Gaining a heart of wisdom
Motherhood, for me, started out like a tightrope walk. To keep my balance and maintain my place on the tightly stretched wire, I read all the books, analyzed all the angles, second guessed all the decisions, and the only thing that saved my sanity is that Google had not been invented yet. I'm still in… Continue reading Motherhood: Learning the Ropes of Joy
Amy Simpson noticed early on that the tidy claims of Christianity were not lining up with the reality she was living at home. Suffering from the impact of her mother's serious and debilitating mental illness, her family was certainly not strolling toward heaven with all their needs met and a smile on their faces. In… Continue reading 8 Blessings of the Unsatisfied Life
The layers of life, in all their overwhelming proportions, call for a large God. The unexpected diagnosis, the many ways in which we disappoint ourselves, and the messiness of the generations all seem to come home to roost during middle age as parents depart this world and adult children come into their own. Margie Nethercott… Continue reading A Glorious Bustle of Life
Holidays and reading go hand in hand, not only because books heighten our enjoyment of the celebration, but also because, through stories, we pass along the Truth and the significance of the holiday. This Easter, I hope you'll take some time to read the account of resurrection found in Scripture first of all. Then, if… Continue reading Fill Your Easter Basket with Books
It should come as no surprise when a brain that has been marinating for decades in North American evangelical culture has an immediate and visceral response to the names of prominent historical Christians: C.S. Lewis: Green light and heart emojis (but, remember, he did smoke . . .) Francis Schaeffer: Amazing intellect, but too bad… Continue reading The Life and Theology of Karl Barth
When Ginger Harrington and her family moved from North Carolina to California, she wasn't worried about packing or adjusting to a new home base. Rather, she was worried about surviving! Medical testing had revealed that she had Graves' disease, a hyperthyroid autoimmune disease and suddenly, all the roller coaster symptoms of anxiety and a body… Continue reading Love God. Embrace Truth. Enjoy Life.
After graduating from college, I moved to the biggest city in Maine for my first "real job," bringing with me a wardrobe fashioned around college life south of the Mason-Dixon. Clearly, my flimsy sandals would not fit my new life as a ministry professional. However, it soon became apparent that my feet were not going… Continue reading Correcting the Soundtrack in Your Head
Wendell Berry poured this wisdom into the mouth of one of his fictional characters: “Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told.” (Jayber Crow) This is always the nature of story, and in Wounds Are Where… Continue reading Drawing Out a Handful of Light
Every so often I threaten to nestle a trash can close beside our mailbox so that most of what arrives there (courtesy of Rural Free Delivery) can hit the recycling bin at the Warren Transfer Station without ever having to come up the hill into our house. Then, there are days when it feels as… Continue reading Thinking Is Hard
The front-and-center project that's consuming time and thought these days is a parenting workshop that my husband and I will be teaching in March. Preparation includes reviewing everything we've read about parenting in the past couple of years, remembering everything we've stumbled upon in the past two decades in the trenches of parenting, discussing all… Continue reading Parenting After the Fall
Living Our Days 