trust
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moreThe One Song No Woman can Afford to Miss
On Tuesday, April 23 rd, 2013I heard of a woman once, who when she was with child, she turned and this song swelled in her, her child’s own song, and she would hum it as she washed pots. Hum it as she did her hair up, hum that song like a beckoning. And when that woman swayed at the end of her ripening, just before the child came, she had hummed it low between each tightening, how she had hummed that...
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moreWhen You are Tired of Worrying
On Thursday, February 28 th, 2013The child at the orphanage, she grabs hold of my Mama’s hand like might she blow away. Like you could be carried straight away into the unknown. And she pulls Mama down, right down to the earth, forces Mama to sit and she starts pulling strands of Mama’s chiffon hair out like she’s white cotton candy in the wind. ...
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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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moreIn the face of Unknowns: Electing to Trust
On Tuesday, November 06 th, 2012On the eve of all the unknowing, when sitting and looking back over everything, you could see it – Somehow all of life’s failings are a failure to somehow trust God. Light caught in the trees. The trees stood in light. Stood in this quiet willingness to grow into the unknown. And there, it comes in the stillness, comes like a light warming the wo...
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moreWhen You’re Broken & Don’t Know Where to Go:
On Thursday, August 30 th, 2012When she was standing there in the spring, under the blaze of the blooming trees, I could remember 13. I could remember the burn of the unfurl, and how the becoming sears, and how does a mother help a daughter light? How does a woman be a light? We had walked down to the water’s edge. ...
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morehow the size of your house has nothing to do with the size of your life
On Tuesday, July 03 rd, 2012After such a week as last week, I’m feeling very small & hushed & I’ve slipped away to the woods with the Farmer & kids. Thank you for prayers last week, for grace as our family tucks away quiet for just a few days…and we’re delighted to invite you up to the front porch to share with some of the best writers on the Web — today, with a ...
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moreWhy You Really May Need to be Done with Safe: Being a Dangerous Disciple of the Unsafe God
On Thursday, June 07 th, 2012My Gran, she’s taking slow walks outside the hospital now. Her heart’s growing stronger, beating certain. I wash down the cupboards in the kitchen. I pray for Gran’s heart attack recovery, for each step she keeps taking, ninety-one and frail-boned and Irish-determined. Life’s a risk and maybe she’s stronger than I am, accepting each heart beat, ea...
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moreWhen You Feel like Everyone is Bigger, Better, Smarter… { or ‘How to be a Star’}
On Thursday, May 03 rd, 2012When the fog meandered in lost on a spring evening in May, she hung her apron up in the back mudroom. She wandered down the back lane too. Down in the woods, she could hear them, the frogs singing, an invisible symphony. She knotted the one side of her skirt up to step over a pothole. She tried to make her way. In a world of reaching, how do you rest? In a cul...
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more3 Things to Hold on to When Life Hurts {Cherry Blossoms in Rain}
On Wednesday, April 25 th, 2012S he learned it haltingly in early spring, when the rain fell. When the edge of Japan washed away. When the sky slid down all the window panes. And a Sunday in spring, when a tornado sky rips up the earth, leaving this fury of questions, she plays on, the same song. Now surer, steadier. I stand at the windowsill. It still rains. The tomatoes plants try to stan...
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moreA Prayer for When You’re on the Edge: ‘grant me grace to fall into His arms’
On Tuesday, April 24 th, 2012To be read, prayed, slowly… ‘O God, I bless thee for the happy moment when I first saw thy law fulfilled in Christ, wrath appeased, death destroyed, sin forgiven, my soul saved…. I want no other rock to build upon than that I have, desire no other hope than that of gospel truth, need no other look than that which gazes on the cross...
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moreWhat Your Scars Can Really Be …
On Monday, April 23 rd, 2012In the kitchen, after supper, while we stack the plates, she pulls up her sleeve to shows me her scars. “Did you see this one here on my arm?” When she bends, a tendril falls across her face, and her finger traces this whorl and I can see how the skin pulls, how pain is embroidered right into her. She is six and she is marked. And there is still so much road ahead. ...
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moreWhen You Desperately Want God to Hear Your Prayers
On Wednesday, November 02 nd, 2011When we buy her two pygmy goats for her birthday, who knew how big faith could get? We bring them home in June in a mini-van with no air-conditioning. Two miniature goats neighing back and forth — on the laps of two boys making jokes about something warm running down their legs. “We do need to name them,” the birthday girl announces. She strokes on...
