Lent
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moreWhen You’re Struggling through Holy Week (Thursday)
On Thursday, March 28 th, 2013There’s snow in the middle of Holy Week. A dusting, a sugar snow, an Easter snow. As if the whole smashed world is intent on freezing. Doing whatever it takes, over and over again, to stay numbed to the burn of the pain. Because somebody’s beloved kid had a womb scraped out to get rid ...
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moreCome to the Easter Garden {A Christian Easter Family Activity}
On Thursday, March 14 th, 2013So the thing is, back there in the beginning, we all had this shattering fall in a garden. And we mark it on the calendar, Christ, falling in the garden of Gethsemane. Christ, righting our messy fall. So the kids and I, we put our hands into dirt, and we remember our garden fall and His garden grace, and we make a Grace Garden for Easter. ...
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moreThe 1 Command that Could Resurrect the Church, Our Hurting Places & the Sisterhood of Women
On Wednesday, March 13 th, 2013There’s a reason He called us His Body and not His Estate.” That’s what Tib Pearson told me. Tib with his Red Wing workboots and worn John Deere hat and hands weathered and etched like a greying cedar rail. “A Body is connected with sinew and vein — and an estate is divided with fences and line.” He said it with his hands, the way a man of the land...
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moreWhat Everyone Who Feels Like a Loser Really Needs
On Wednesday, March 06 th, 2013It’s half way through Lent and forget that sign of of dust they brush on the center of your forehead. I’m bowed over the sink after a teenage daughter’s slammed out the backdoor. Slammed out of my ugly diatribe. And I’m thinking I need something more direct, right there on the middle of brow. Like the “L” sign. The one the Farmer frowns deep ...
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moreOf Women & Sisters & Family & How You Really Speak Lent
On Wednesday, February 20 th, 2013So Shalom has this bag made by 3 Cords in Haiti that she carries her shoes and Bible in it to Wednesday night Kids Club, and sometimes a hen or a pig, depending on how the day slants and careens. That’s the bag the kid keeps hanging on the first hook inside the bac...
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moreFamily Mission Trip #1 (Friday on the Farm)
On Friday, February 15 th, 2013And (I think!) we’re off! Lord willing, we’ll be sharing the God stories in real time as we go with God and stumble ...
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moreWhen You Need The Very Best Valentine
On Thursday, February 14 th, 2013To the one who takes me anyway: I know that it really might not have been. That I could have laughed too loud — wait. I did laugh too loud — but the craziest thing was that you didn’t roll your eyes but looked into mine instead. I’ve got no bloomin’ reason why. Why did you find my eyes and look straight and unasham...
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moreWhy Doing Lent This Year Is What You Really Need . . . . . (and a Free Family Lent & Easter Devotional)
On Tuesday, February 12 th, 2013I can’t seem to follow through in giving up for Lent. Which makes me want to just give up Lent. Which makes me question Who I am following. Which may precisely be the point of Lent. Last week, I’m standing on a table, snapping the shutter on a bouquet of roses, when by brother calls. Levi picks it u...
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moreHow in this World Do You Find Joy? ……. {Holy Week: Part 4}
On Thursday, April 05 th, 2012In the middle of Passion Week, we work dirt. We pick stones off the field, haul off rocks to ready a seed bed. There are eggs in an incubator downstairs in a closet. The whole world is this ticking, waiting, readying thing, on the brink of something cosmic, on the brink of the Biggest Bang — that slamming hammer and the howl of God ringing to the stars. That’s what ...
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more3 Bowls & a Crown of Thorns on Holy Week … {A Holy Week: Day 2}
On Tuesday, April 03 rd, 2012{This is part of a series this week on preparing hearts for Easter. Part 1 of A Holy Week can be found here} Dad always did that after the meat and potatoes, after the plates were cleared and stacked. He’d ask for a toothpick. Him in his plaid flannel shirt and Levi’s, looking for a bit of a tree to right everything again. That’s what he’d do before he l...
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moreIf You Want to Start Your Holy Week off Well {A Holy Week: Day 1}
On Monday, April 02 nd, 2012My Grandma, she told me if you found a man who’d weep over a story — that was a man you could marry. The morning of Palm Sunday, the porridge boils over and burns on the stove. Hope tries on three dresses, slumps into the kitchen and declares she has nothing to wear. Shalom can’t find her pink hair bow — only a blue one that’s missing the barrette....
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moreWhen You are Looking for Signs of Joy … {Words for Lent}
On Tuesday, March 27 th, 2012The water in the woods, it warms in the sun this week. The dog plunges right in. That was the first miracle of the skin bound God: a turning of water into wine. A spring pond in the woods at the end of March, it’s a bit like that — a turning of water into wine. ...
