Walk with Him
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moreHow to Really Survive a Heart Attack
On Thursday, May 24 th, 2012Mama calls me to tell me that her mama’s had a heart attack. I hold the receiver close. Lower myself into a chair. Granny of the tea biscuits and the white light netted up in her white hair — she’s hardly standing at the side of her bed when her heart gets blocked and bits of her on the inside explode. On t...
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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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moreHow to Love Your Enemies?
On Wednesday, April 18 th, 2012N ot all enemies carry arrows. All my life I had liked to think it was only David who had his enemies. Is it easier to say we don’t have any enemies — so we don’t have to figure out how to really love them? And how to forgive enemies from the heart? But who hasn’t been cheated on, talked down, lied about, pierced right through and left heart-broken on...
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moreWhen You’re Feeling Unseen & Unappreciated {Words for Lent}
On Wednesday, March 21 st, 2012It’s hard to know what that is — when it’s a spotlight that heats up a prophet’s fervor. When ardency kindles with a microphone and holiness is this blazing performance for audience and applause. But what is that, that zealous ember in the dark, when a...
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moreThe Secret to Fasting in a Lent that is Failing
On Wednesday, February 29 th, 2012Dust cloth in hand, that is what I’m thinking Lent’s all about. Don’t I desperately want to be changed when Easter morning dawns? For something different to have dawned in me. I wash things down. I m...
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moreFree Easter Devotional Book to Make a Jesus Easter Tree
On Wednesday, February 22 nd, 2012I 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 up, his eyes twinkling, stars risen early. I can only h...
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moreWhat Is The Best Gift to Give to A Man ? {Married Love & The Principle of Three Feet}
On Wednesday, February 01 st, 2012That’s what your mama had said — that it was the last day of January in the middle of a Canadian snowstorm. And all the farmers up and down the gravel roads had milked their cows in the morning and headed to the city’s Indoor Farm Show. And she had you, her ninth born, alone and late into that howling storm. Today you turn 39. What do you give a man who doesn’...
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moreThe 1 Habit More Important than Quiet Time? {Memorize the Mount: Free Sermon on the Mount Memory Booklet}
On Wednesday, January 25 th, 2012Who memorizes God in the age of Google? For a week, longer, I wake with these fears choking hard. Fears pushing me into the pit. And it comes while I struggle to get out of bed, comes early as the light pries back the dark, words we’ve been committing to heart — and I murmur them, hold onto them like a lifeline tossed: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for thei...
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moreThe 4 Minute Marriage Habit: How to make 2012 the year you fall madly in love all over again
On Wednesday, January 11 th, 2012He lays his hand on my shoulder. Water drips from strands tousled and a rivulet runs down the small of my back. “I have no idea what to wear.” I’m paying him no mind, standing before the closet with my towel, mumbling words. Hangers clatter. “What you’re wearing is rather pretty.” His stubbl...
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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...
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morewhen it’s all pressing in : the fluid principle
On Wednesday, October 19 th, 2011I‘m standing at the counter, day seeping in without knocking, jotting down a list of the day’s tasks, the work of a week, in my journal, and it’s just a tad overwhelming. I’m trying to remember just to breathe… And then I am fifteen again. That summer I gripped the handlebars of a Honda Goldwing, weave around margarine tubs set up as pylons in the ...
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moreThe Very Best Place to Really Hope
On Wednesday, September 28 th, 2011The boys paddle through the waters, one strong stroke at a time, and I watch their wake. The way they keep moving ahead, just keep moving ahead. It could be this way: that I cease seeking to escape pilgrim life, that I embrace the journey, that I not want any different road for my life than the road He winnows. It’s wh...
