It’s a race. We’re to run with perseverance. And that might mean throwing off everything that hinders us. We’re to run in such a way as to finish the race. And that might mean strict training. We’re to run a good race. And that means not letting anyone cut in and get us off course….
They talk on the radio of “domestic tranquility” and I laugh. There’s not much tranquil around here unless the children are in bed. I try to pick up, spruce up, do the dishes up, but often, despite my best race-around-as-soon-as-naptime-is-over efforts, I welcome him home to a very messy, crazy, noisy house. I hand him…
I keep trying to do and to be more and more. But I feel like I’m sinking, deeper and deeper. I reach for something else, holding on for dear life, hoping it will be the thing to keep me afloat, to lift me out of this mire. Yet its weight only pulls me deeper. But…
I stretch my arms wide. I want to do it all. But then everything’s shallow. It is easier to go wide than it is to go deep. I say yes to too many things thinking, “I can do it.” But then I’m spread so thin I can’t do anything well. Less is more. I’d rather…
They spin and they twirl and they stand on their tip toes (preferably in the sunlight streaming through the window so they can watch their shadow dance). In their mind’s eye, they are as graceful as the Ballet Magnificat. “Aren’t I so lovely, Mommy?” the one asks in all confidence. And I agree. Smiling at…
That second I realize I’m going to have to stretch to reach it and every muscle tightens in anticipation rather than relaxing to bend and extend. That moment I realize I’m going to be stretched beyond my comfortable status quo and everything within me is taut with fear. That is when I realize I can…
There are days when I can’t even connect the dots of my own feelings enough to know what I’d say if I had the words. The only phrases I can string together come from sad mad Country songs and I wonder if songwriters are always in a state of emotional conflict. Other days the sun…
Give me the wisdom to forego the tyranny of the urgent that I might not forsake the eternal that is here and now.
If we could see beyond today as God can see… I could hear the tune in my head the moment I thought about the word “beyond.” I pulled out the old brown hymnal to find it. I don’t remember if we sang it in our church growing up. But it only had one sharp, so…
We have so much more than enough. I sort the outgrown clothes into overflowing bins. I stack the boxes of books for upcoming school years. We can the extra tomatoes so we’ll still have enough this winter. We are blessed in abundance. We have oh so much more than enough for the five of us….
Sometimes, writing our story is the best way to focus on the good memories. Other times, writing out our story is the only way to process the hard times. Sometimes, our own story hurts so much to write that we need to lose ourselves in another’s story for a while. Sometimes, reading another’s story brings…
I can hear them from my spot at the kitchen sink. All three girls piled on the bed, the oldest telling a story to her cousins, my girls. Eager to join the party of giggles and laughter, the only boy of the party toddles and crawls to the bedroom. My own oldest has been playing…
The End.
The End.