Advent, these weeks leading to Christmas, with their invitation to enter into longing, is here again. Having appreciated this liturgical season for many years, I’m game. I have a handful of devotional books that usher me into the theme of longing and related practices. I like the...
This summer, my family had the enormous privilege of traveling to Iceland for a ten-day vacation. My husband, Mark, likes leading our family to explore less traveled corners of the world, and Iceland has fascinated him for years. We loved our time there. The Icelanders we met were...
Ready for this? I’ve been running. Every other day, for five whole weeks, I’ve headed out the door in the morning for a thirty-minute run (well, walk and run). This is big news in my life. It may not seem big in our exercise culture. I have so many friends who frequent...
Last week, I had the privilege of talking with a friend who recently endured the tragic deaths of loved ones. Since grief can be softened in sharing, I offered some reflections on losing my mom when I was eighteen. In expressing the tensions inherent in grief, I spoke of the gifts that...
I attended a conference this fall, which broadly focused on growing closer to God, to others, and to my life’s purpose. In the days leading up to the conference, I was expectant for good things. I’ve enjoyed the conference setting many times in my life. I brought my journal...
In a little less than three months, my firstborn will put elementary school in his rearview mirror and look ahead to the wild and widening world of middle school. Yikes! And so, I become another in a long string of parents who waited endlessly each day for the bedtime that seemed...
This fall I read the book Renew Your Life by Kai Mark Nilsen. It was a book club selection—not a personal favorite, but one with stirring thoughts nonetheless. One of the book’s more thought-provoking themes was the idea of “the slow work of God.” After...
No one has ever mistaken me for an outdoorsy person. All the way back to my toddler days, I’ve largely had an aversion to being (or at least feeling) dirty, and the adventure of camping has pretty much no traction with me. I hold this in tension with the fact that I still...