Beauty Marks
Give thanks. In all things. I’m spending much time these days confessing. I’m confessing that I haven’t been giving thanks—in all things—always. When I confess my failure, I am agreeing with God. And when I agree with God, change for the better can begin in me. That’s the whole point of confessing, I believe. Not to […]
Duckies and Dads and Mountains
I went to church with my dad and stepmom while visiting them in Arizona. To some, this might not seem like such a big deal. To me, it was a momentous occasion. During our phone conversation the day before my flight, Dad asked me if I would go to church with him on Sunday. I […]
Death and Birth the Whole Spectrum of Feelings
My first glance at Facebook today left me near breathless. One of my very good friends posted a picture of a baby—in black & white. It wasn’t any particular baby known to her. It was taken off the Internet—off some random site. But the status was very, very personal. The baby—the one conceived shortly after […]
A Beautiful Nightmare
The whole family was in our Toyota Highlander last night, buckled in. I was driving, my husband was in the passenger seat, and our three kids were in the back. Southbound on I-43, we drove in the dark to Milwaukee on our way to a play. We were cruising along, happily chatting about random subjects […]
A Spotted Woman
She stood there in the circle of three women and said this . . . “There’s nothing in this life like having a baby and having your baby have a baby.” She said it to the woman standing beside me, about my age, readying herself for her first grandchild due to arrive the natural way […]
Into the Wood
After our long walk on the ledge, Todd and I meandered along the inner wood trails—the guts of the forest. Nearly naked they were, the trees having shed their garments of leaves, bare and vulnerable facing winter winds and snow blankets coming. Earth floor carpeted in dry and dead, I dragged my feet because I […]
Life on the Ledge
One of my best friends in the whole wide world read my last blog post. When I saw her she said something like this . . . Your words were lovely. You were really vulnerable in that piece. That’s what I remember her saying. And then I started getting anxious, again. I get anxious because […]