Gratitude
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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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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? ...
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moreHow Do You Find Joy? {One Thousand Gifts Small Group DVD Study}
On Thursday, October 25 th, 2012Come to the farm? Would you? Remember this — when things were afoot on the farm and my knees wouldn’t stop knocking and I whispered, Please pray? — and you did? It’s ready now! And it was all our gift for you! We prayed hard and we thought of the...
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moreHow to Handle Losses
On Monday, October 22 nd, 2012All through the woods, the trees are letting go. I told the Farmer on the way home from Sunday chapel — when we came up to the top of Bobbie Johnson’s corner, and just before he turned, where you could look long to the northwest and out across Gingerich’s cornfield to their woodlot with the embers of maple — that it was brave, the way the trees made dyin...
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moreBest Tips for Effective Time Management
On Monday, October 08 th, 2012(Take time today for the Thanksgiving Chair? Best use of time… to live like this. If reading in a reader or email, view the video here… Consider pausing the music directly under the header?) On Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend… Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good,...
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moreBest Way to Begin October: 31 Days to Crazy Joy {with Farm Video}
On Monday, October 01 st, 2012Welcome! To 31 Days?! I’ve never done a “31 days” before. I’m crazy. Crazy enough to think that everyone who breathes is a wild crusader for holy joy. The woman bent over the stove. The man pulling on work boots. All those who feel invisible and unimportant and alone and discouraged ...
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moreWhat Every Hard Week Needs to Know
On Monday, September 24 th, 2012Sometimes, even right before it really begins, you know how the week’s going to go. I look in the mirror early on a Monday morning, the bedhead looking more like a monsterhead, and I look right into that water-splattered mirror. And tell the woman looking back at me how the next seven days are likely to go down — are going to likely try to take me down. ...
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moreWhen Everything’s Pressing in a bit Too Much & You’d Just like Some Answers
On Monday, September 17 th, 2012I sat across from a woman who just kept looking up at the ceiling to keep herself from falling apart. Looked at the ceiling like she was looking for answers from somewhere on high. Looked at the ceiling and told me that she loved God and she hated God and right now was best of times and the worst of times and — that’s when she dropped her eyes hard like a gavel and ...
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moreThe problem of evil? The Greater Problem of Good?
On Monday, September 10 th, 2012So after dinner, she picks coneflowers in the garden. Cradles the long stems in her apron skirt, carries them up through the picket gate. And she turns to me on the top step of the porch, holds her apron out to me, all those purple petals — art in an apron. “Why is there all this loveliness?” She wants to know. I almos...
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moreWhat Fills the Space after a Goodbye
On Tuesday, September 04 th, 2012He wasn’t yet a week when I changed his diaper in the front seat of that Ford Escort and he’d christened his father’s steering wheel with this stream of pale gold. The Farmer had muttered something about this boy of his being the death of him yet. I’d chuckled, tucked the falling hair behind the ear, ...
