Gift List
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moreBecause Sometimes the World Needs Joy-in-a-Box
On Monday, April 22 nd, 2013Joy for someone struggling in the dark? Mother’s Day? Someone in need of a pick-me-up? The One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflections on Finding Everyday Graces and the photographic gift book, Selections from One Thousand Gifts were both nominated as finalists for the Best Devotional and Best Gift Book in the Christian Retailer’s Choice Awards. Maybe today&#...
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moreHow To Get Through Cancer, Dark Times, & Suffering {…and an interview @Desiring God}
On Monday, March 25 th, 2013So this Palm Sunday weekend found me gathering with the women from Perimeter Church. Where songwriter Laura Story, and her soul beautiful friend,Tiffany both attend…. and I pray their God stories in the midst of suffering forever change me: {Consider muting Mr. Nevue’s music ...
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moreDaring Greatly to Live Fully — Right Where You Are
On Monday, March 18 th, 2013When Monday gets caught in your teeth like a piece of spinach, the crazy thing is you could dare to laugh — it gets things unstuck. You know how it goes — Laugh or die. A joyful heart is good medicine, not just a good platitude. You could &...
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moreHow to find Happiness in the Dark
On Monday, March 11 th, 2013Right after I read the story, I go looking for an old horn to screw right to the wall. There are things worth the proclaiming, you know? And after I find one, I walk around the house with the horn in hand trying to figure if it looks best on this wall? Or the back of this door? The Farmer raises his eyebrows. “A horn on a wall?” He’s grinning boyish. Joshua is playing sca...
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more5 Things You Need to Know Before You Begin Your 2nd Term of Life
On Monday, January 21 st, 2013It felt like the second term to her. Her 39 and him about 40, and the first half over, now the beginning of the second. Or of the end — depending how you looked at it. You don’t get to make up most of your story. That’s what she thought at the stove over eggs, over all the cracked and broken things. ...
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moreHow to Keep in Time with God
On Monday, January 14 th, 2013There wasn’t a morning that she didn’t flick off her bedroom light and find it right there on the edge of the table outside their bedroom door. One round vitamin C that he’d leave out for her, before he went to the barn and his udder-dripping sows. Like he thought she could just take it and keep the day from being infected with grief. Like there was a way to i...
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moreWhen You Don’t Want A New Year but A New You. . . {Camera Giveaway} *UPDATED with winner
On Tuesday, January 01 st, 2013How Maggie Pluim knew to ask that question, I’ll never know. Grace has it’s unending ways. True, I had told her straight up that I had no intention of showing up for the church’s annual New Year’s Eve party with Marian Brubacher’s caramel popcorn and Viola Gingerich’s raspberry punch and Mr. Vaness’ countless rounds of Dutch Blitz. R...
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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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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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