Gaining a heart of wisdom
Rootedness was always the thing that both repelled and intrigued me. I left my parents' home at the age of seventeen and pictured a life unleashed -- no commitments. I copied all my record albums onto small and portable cassette tapes (dinosaur alert!) and prepared for the unencumbered life. With that resolve in my rear… Continue reading A Theology of Home
We were greeted with warm handshakes and pleasantries, an outline of the morning service, and then a startling announcement: "We assumed that your wife would want to take the children." In the early days of our marriage when my husband was the area director of a children's ministry, I used to travel with him to… Continue reading Women in Ministry: What God Wants You to Know
In our virtual world, we can swipe away friends as easily as we send leftover mashed potatoes into the kitchen trash. We can polish our words and present ourselves as successful and popular, and even produce photos to back up our claim, but the longing of our hearts for true friendship -- for genuine connection… Continue reading 10 Questions that Foster Thriving Friendships
Five hundred years ago, the writing and teaching of Martin Luther set in motion within the church a series of reforms that were so widespread and foundational that we still speak of them as The Reformation. In this anniversary year, much is being written about the lives of the reformers, but direct access to Luther's commentaries, sermons,… Continue reading Martin Luther in His Own Words
One of my favorite fringe benefits in this mothering life is the broadening of my world. I routinely listen to conversations about welding and truck repair, have sat through hours and hours of livestock shows, and a few weekends ago, I witnessed my first triathlon. I watched in awe as, one by one, the participants… Continue reading Grow Up! (The Practice of Resurrection)
When we read about women in the Bible, there's a tendency to flatten them out into cardboard characters, one-dimensional and distant. Kate Merrick was in that camp as well, intimidated by the fabulous woman of Proverbs 31, judging Bathsheba, missing the depth of Mary's sacrifice in saying yes to God, and brushing Sarah off as… Continue reading Laughter on the Pathway of Lament
Twenty minutes on ice. Twenty minutes on my feet. Then back to the couch and the ice pack -- and that was how I made it through the early days of mothering. Degenerative disc disease and pregnancy make for some painful and complicated logistics when they converge, but, oddly, it's not the pain I remember… Continue reading A Story of Waiting
No one has to remind the forsythia bush outside my dining room window to break forth into yellow luminescence as an announcement that spring has come. The sassy gray squirrel steals shamelessly from the bird feeder "according to his kind," and the chickadee scolds and stitches up the air behind her -- because that is… Continue reading Attending to the Details of Congruence
I started listening to NPR a few years ago because I had entered a season of needing to hear a different voice, of wanting to listen to viewpoints and encounter opinions that I did not share. In these days of challenging conversations around politics and race, it's important for me to remember that I am called… Continue reading God Bless the Whole World — No Exceptions
When C.S. Lewis wrote (famously) of desires unmet that set our hearts toward the journey of further up and further in, it's obvious that he was writing in the days of snail mail and expensive long-distance phone calls. The truth is that life on planet Earth is beset with longings of every kind, but chief… Continue reading Loneliness: An Opportunity and a Sign of Hope
Living Our Days 