“It snowed on the hills around us last night.” I think of the words from one of his letters each time it snows on those same hills again each year. I remember how much I longed to be with him then, to watch it snow and let him warm my hands, my heart. Today he…
“Do you remember where you bought this CD?” he asks, in the midst of the after-dinner cleanup and pickup. No, I can’t remember where I bought it. (We decided it must have been used off the internet, with the hole punched through the bar code.) But I remember why. It has that song on it. …
When I have someone to do the dishes for me, I remember again how much I love it. Cooking. Baking. Combining ingredients, tasting, testing, to make something satisfying and filling. Something to warm the soul and the stomach. Something that speaks love to my family and any guests. Something that tastes like home. I’ve been…
I’ve always thought of myself as an extrovert. But at Relevant last week, I began to question whether I really was as extroverted as I’d always thought. I shook hands and gave hugs and traded business cards with the rest. I made small talk with the ladies at my table and even went up to…
“I picking up so very well.” Mary’s statement is meant to draw attention approval. Even though she’s just grabbing everything scattered all over the floor and stacking it on the diaper bags that I have yet to put away. At least she’s trying. It’s better than stumbling on the toys that so often litter the…
I’m a farmer’s wife. Our days are anything but predictable. He might be home at 11:45 a.m. ready for lunch. But some days, it’s 3 p.m. And when I have dinner ready early, he’s late and unable to call. When I assume he won’t be home until 15 or 20 minutes until after he could…
“Instead of never finding enough time for God in the midst of everything else, I had to work everything else around God.” –Holly Pierlot in A Mother’s Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul, page 18 In reading A Mother’s Rule of Life, I was again convicted…
It was in every single book and blog post I was reading. From the the Mahaney ladies’ 5 AM Club in Shopping for Time to Anne Ortlund committing to meet with God in the wee morning hours in Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman. I knew I needed to get up earlier—to meet with God, to…
I want to get beyond just the surface in my relationships. It’s easier to discuss general ideas than my ideas. It’s easier to talk about other people than my life. It’s easier to say “fine” than “struggling” when asked, “How are you?” But I want to get beyond the general to the specific. Beyond the…
The FlyLady says to get dressed to your lace-up shoes when you start your day. Others like to step into their pumps to stop the frumps. Me? I’d be a barefoot-in-the-kitchen kind of girl—except for our concrete floor. I’d be a wear-my-comfy-foot-shaped-Keens-for-housework-each-day kind of girl—except that I like to be able to easily slip into…
“There’s more to life than increasing it’s speed.” Little ones grow up. The seasons race by. I’m learning lately the importance of living in the moment, not living in the next item on my to-do list. So I set my timer for the unimportant things. I race through them to get on to that which…
Because the only way to conquer the tyranny of the urgent is to do the next thing… From an old English parsonage down by the sea, There came in the twilight a message to me; Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven, Hath, as it seems to me, teaching from heaven. And all through the doors,…
The End.
The End.