Ugly
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moreWhen Thanksgiving & the Holidays Just Seem Hard
On Wednesday, November 21 st, 2012‘Whatever.” The Wednesday morning before turkey and pie and black Friday flyers, I wake up to this smothering of fog and this teen muttering it through the kitchen: “Whatever.” And what do you say but that’s not quite the way to start off the day, and he shrugs his shoulders and slams the bathroom door behind him, and I get it. ...
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moreWhat Women Need to Say to Each Other… because it’s what every woman needs to hear
On Friday, September 14 th, 2012IIt’s when you came up behind me and put your arms around me in the kitchen last night while I was making food for your Dad. The way you laid your head on my shoulder and you held me, mama in the daughter arms after all these thirteen years. I reached up and laid my hand on your cheek, and it only takes a moment and mother and a daughter aren’t far apart anymore. Yo...
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moreWhat is Really in the Midst of Every Messy House
On Friday, August 13 th, 2010Somebody stands in the kitchen near the end of the day and calls someone with a higher pitched whine an idiot. And I hear it and I hear the ensuing wail and I wince and I am at the end of my rope near the end of the day and I rail perfectly ugly about the beauty of grace and this is not how Christians talk and we do not say things like that around here and some kid notes that...
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moreHow to Read the Scales and Find Your Perfect Weight
On Monday, July 26 th, 2010I don’t think of it then, when I raise my hands up in what isn’t, well, precisely, praise, but more this throwing lift of lament and exhausted surrender and end-of-the-day fatigue. And I can’t say that it occurred to me — then that it is the judges who have scales and it really could be that we were born with two hands because we never stop weighing th...
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The Necessary Transplanting of The Wild Things
On Monday, July 12 th, 2010July twilight and my brother shows up at the back door. My brother!. All man. Still boy. Still freckles. Still that tugging grin tugging at me. “So.” He rubs his hands like he’s about to pull the past out of nothing. “Ya got time for a walk down the back lane?” Shalom’s already pulling at his hand, pulling hard for the back door. John and I used to go slooping up ...
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What to Do When You Want to Give Up and Stay in Bed
On Monday, April 12 th, 2010Shadows of depression can ride up like a highway man in the night and and steal away all the silver linings. I wake on a Sunday to his cantering away. I lay in the bed a long time. The legs, the spirit, too heavy to move. The sun’s high already, the sheets warm. I make a point of not looking at my watch or the bedside clock’s hands ticking, vainly trying to nudge me out. ...
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moreThe Joy of Having Only One Eye
On Thursday, March 25 th, 2010One thing I ask of the LORD,this is what I seek: … to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD… Psalm 27:4 ‘We’re to seek for beauty…and refuse to see anything else.” ~Anne of Avonlea Lord God, I pray for monocular vision the joy of having only one eye — an eye for beauty only. Photos: bloom in Subiaco greenhouse Shar...
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when life presents itself as ugly: don’t be deceived by wrapping paper
On Monday, March 22 nd, 2010The only way to live in the joy of the Lord… is to believe that the Lord only gives life for joy. That’s the real reality I realize, fight wild to cling to on a Friday when piano books are lost, (again!) and I think I may hyperventilate, when boys whip balls in the house and glass shatters, when brothers wrestle on a Saturday and the house erupts in pain howls ...
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moreBeauty Challenge: Seeing Through
On Thursday, November 05 th, 2009Reframing the mess, seeing through to the Real…. …He rewards those who earnestly seek him. ~Heb. 11:6 Lord, when I seek… when I seek. The Beauty of You… You. This week: Beauty Challenge #1 ::: Beauty Challenge #2 Photos: seeing through to the Be...
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moreUn-ugly…
On Monday, July 06 th, 2009Every bush burns. Even the twisted, thorny ones….I spent the weekend looking for beauty, God-sparks, in the ugly…More of the Ugly-Beautiful… more of 1000-and-still-counting Gifts… 1034.We sit at the edge of our cornfield and our thanks for living on this bit of dirt explodes, little bursts of light. 1035.After she loses tonsil...
