Last night I visited the hospital. A nurse, efficient and distant, prepped me. Those cardiac sensations – so familiar and dreaded – shook my insides. I’d been to this clinic before; the insertion of an IV and heart monitor was standard. This was the first time, though, that they would […]

“Do you feel the weight of your darkness – mean thoughts, unmentionable desires, things you’ve done that you pray no one discovers? Do you keep trying to do things differently and keep tripping up?” Ginny Owens asks these questions in her devotional Singing in the Dark. Ginny is blind and […]

Remember this?   The sunflower, that, in spite of an environment filled with threats, thrived? This flower, at first fragile and threatened, became thick and tough and made it through.   That yellow beauty is you. And it’s me. Weathered and scarred (if you look closely.) But strong.    

I’m bored.  Are you? I used to think that those who are bored are spoiled. Way too much free time and unused energy. Africans who wash clothes by hand and Latin Americans who sell trinkets on the streets cannot be bored because fighting to survive is a daily, hourly thing […]

Are you chronically bored with life? Does the sameness of your days leave you feeling like you’ve missed your calling, lost your ambition or fallen off of the Life Is Fun ride? I remember a time when I tried out basketball and belly dancing. New friends populated my world. Some […]

Against all odds, something beautiful is underway. It’s you. And it’s me. But more of that later… I buried two sunflower seeds in bad soil. Sunflowers never grow for me. Some days there’s too much heat – it dries out my sandy soil. Other times it doesn’t rain and I […]

I went to a funeral yesterday. A co-worker. Four years younger than me. Cancer. She is gone. I am still here. A miracle. Life is fragile, not just for her or me – for all of us. Those who are sick and those who are not can be taken at […]

What do you carry? I mean, really carry? In polite conversation, with a stranger, I might say that I work and I cook. You might tell me about your job, or your chores. When I ask what you carry, though, this isn’t what I mean. What heavy things linger from […]

“Wherever we are always accepted and never alone, never abandoned, our deepest dreams can come true – even in the midst of nightmares.” (Ann Voskamp – Waymaker) In a paragraph about addiction and loss, death, betrayal and rejection, Ann Voskamp writes about dreams coming true. We expect our lives to […]

Do you obsess over selfies and photos and the image that stares back at you when you use the bathroom? Or maybe it’s the opposite… you never take selfies, make sure you’re the one holding the camera for group shots and you look as little as possible at any mirror […]