1000Gifts
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moreThe Truth about Sandy Hook: Where is God when Bad Things Happen?
On Monday, December 17 th, 2012When the guy with the glasses and guitar stands at the front of the chapel, in the middle of Nowhere Country, and tells us all to stand, I’ve got no idea if I can. I don’t know if legs can hold a heart this heavy. I don’t know if anyone can stand straight in a fallen world and why don’t we all just fall on our skinned and bloodied knees? When grief is deepest, words ar...
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moreBecause We’re Women in a Long Line of Women {*UPDATED at bottom of post}
On Tuesday, December 11 th, 2012It wasn’t planned or anything, no more than you can get all your ducks lined up in a row — no more than you can stop love from breaking free. I just bent a bit on a December 11th, bent and swayed and prayed, and I had two babies on the same day, December 11th — two years apart. One early in the morning, 6:27 am, in the middle of a Canadian blizzard, and the o...
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moreWhat Your Christmas Needs to Really be Merry
On Monday, December 10 th, 2012The Practice of the Pause And on a whirling world, in the middle of the blur, you just hold a pause — at the end of one smeared moment — and before the next, holding the moments right to their very end with the full length...
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moreThe Grateful Christmas Project: 7 Ways to have more Grateful Kids this Christmas
On Monday, December 03 rd, 2012I‘m thinking it’s almost a dozen years now, nothing under the Christmas tree here. Strange, the way children teach men. The whole crazy, unexpected thing, it started at bedtime one year, I do remember that. Smoothing back hair, kissing foreheads. I had gifts to wrap. So, I pulled up the blankets. Prayers. And then, when I’m at the door, one h...
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moreHow Beards & Men & Random Acts of Kindness Can Change the World
On Tuesday, November 27 th, 2012I can’t ever say that kissing him before was painful. I mean, nothing about him ever scratched abrasive and rough, nothing like the grit side of an unused emory board, the backside of a knot of burrs. The man just grabbed me around the waist and most days the warm side of him feels only like a few days growth, like he’d be tough enough to drive those whiskers right ...
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moreThe One Holiday that God Demands is All of our Days?
On Monday, November 19 th, 2012We’re laughing like these crazy loons out in the middle of a field of corn. The Farmer’s got hold of that combine seat like he’s on this one-time shot at the whole round moon. It’s harvest and a time of thanksgiving and the holy cusp of Advent and you won’t pass by this way again and the corn just keeps on coming. ...
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moreA {Christian} Family Thanksgiving Activity: The Thanks Giving Tree {Free Printable}
On Wednesday, November 07 th, 2012Leaves aren’t ever purely green and not everything is as it seems. The kids and I walk through the orchard and November. That’s what I tell the kids. That all summer, the chlorophyll of the leaf, all that green, absorbs the sun and releases food and it this cycle of chlorophyll that cloaks the leaves’ pure ...
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moreThe Holiday that could become All of our Days — & change our lives
On Monday, November 05 th, 2012The woman I meet up on the concourse, she tells me she was done. Done with the man and the ring and the vows, done with the kids, done with her life. Her eyes are so large and fragile, hands trembling, the way your world can quake and break and the aftershocks rattle you and the stunned retelling. I touch her shoulder. And she crumbles in and heaves, and heaves that counting bl...
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moreThe Real Truth about the Real First Thanksgiving {Free Printable}
On Friday, November 02 nd, 2012That field of beans west of the barn, it looked gaunt come end of October, bean pods all hanging like bony ribs. Whenever the wind sighed, the whole field just rattled skinny. That’s how my Dad always spoke of a railish man, that you could count his ribs. Nothing in me wanted to count those beans, know the yield, from this spare field. When the Farmer rolled...
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moreHappy November! {November Joy Dare}
On Thursday, November 01 st, 2012Happy Blessed November! BEST month yet? Looking for all His good gifts! {Crazy, eh? That recent studies conclude that keeping a gratitude gift list is *guaranteed* to increase your happiness by 25%? Who in the world doesn’t want 25% more happy? } Print out for the fridge, dare the kids, use these pr...
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moreHow to Prepare for Storms
On Monday, October 29 th, 2012Storm coming. The geese fly, this black arrow renting the sky before the rain and wind battle in. And we get the pumpkins and squash in, have the bread and applesauce out in the kitchen, and it’s always this – how do you live through storms? ...
