The Second Story Line

I drove aimlessly under the spring sky, my heart all holed-up in winter.

They’d gotten their court dates assigned, a whole group of them, but we’d heard nothing. Our children shared blankets and beds and nannies on another continent while we, previously strangers, were having our stories woven together stateside. We formed a fraternity in the waiting room of adoption.

I’m sure it will it come in a day or two, I’d thought. Our adoption we’d generously estimated would take eight months was now into month nineteen. This couldn’t possibly be as hard as the other hurdles we’d hit. I’d been assuming we’d still all fall in step but I had finally stopped flinching at every potential delay.

Until I ..read more

The Smell of His Skin

I ended my road run on the beach the morning after we arrived. Up the boardwalk stairs, I could smell it before I saw it.

I always loved that first look at the ocean after a year spent only viewing it in my memory.

I had forgotten, in that moment, that the last time I was at the beach was one of the last times I’d seen my father. And that my father was the one who’d indoctrinated me into loving the ocean and the clay-like sand between my fingers and the mystery of the world I didn’t know that brimmed below it’s surface.

Sometimes I’d mis-diagnose an ocean scent for the smell of his salty skin wrapped ..read more

My Life is Full of Favorites

It’s that time again. I love finding my favorites and sharing them. (The beauty of this God-Man shows up in His children.) And this month they are popping up among my friends. Though this list is by no means exhaustive! Here’s just a little early-taste of the people I love to celebrate. (There will be more of these to come ):

The Simple Ways Once a researcher, now one who, by sheer necessity, gleans from another, I jumped in on her class knowing that these would be the very cliff’s notes I need. And let me tell you, this was the right place to glean! My sweet friend was so professional and gave me just the information ..read more

A New Flavor of Adoration

[Lately I've been practicing a new form of adoration. Instead of just a verse or two or three that describe Jesus, I've been taking a passage about Him from the gospels and sliding myself right in there -- feeling the desert-dust on my knees and smelling His sweat as I stand near enough to the scene to adore the God-Man I get to witness. Friends, this flesh against God-made-flesh perspective, turned upward into adoration, is doing a number on my insides. Would you consider trying it with me?]

Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could ..read more

Rooting Their Identity

“Remember when we would walk to the store to buy bananas, Daddy, and sometimes avocados!?” she said excitedly. She might as well have been saying “remember when those days we rode a whale in the ocean together.”

These golden moments of childhood were scrap-booked in her memory.

The six weeks we spent in Uganda adopting our most recent two seemed to threaten all I’d known of establishing family. Many of our days were spent, all of us and often a few others, cramped into the back seat of a small van driving dirt roads chasing paperwork. Our children had no routine. They were up late and often begrudged the needed nap because we had another affidavit to track ..read more

Kindling

I woke up knowing I’d blown it. I walked, head-down, eyes-in to the little room off of our bedroom that witnesses my morning’s first fruits, so often unregulated. I was tired, weak-hearted and yesterday’s pains always feel bigger in the morning.

This one felt exceptionally big.

He’d provided the opportunity for which I’d prayed. I ask Him, often, to be in on their inner-workings. Nate’s and the children’s heart-processing are treasure for me. They partner with Him for me. I want to do the same.

So it came, a vulnerable moment. Another layer of Nate, revealed. A chance to speak life, to put my ear up to the door of His heart and translate the heartbeat on the ..read more

When Love Has Its Way With Us

She elbowed and writhed and pulled at my fingers which were wrapped tenderly around her arm. She shimmied with adrenaline-charged strength I’d not seen before in her, determined not to know the intimacy of my hold or to hear healing words. Her body fought what it needed most.

In between her resisting my embrace and collapsing underneath it, I brushed fingers across her forehead and wiped away tears from overfull ducts. I held her head to my neck, flesh against flesh, my touch an attempt at smelling salts. I wanted to awaken her to that which was more real than her experience of years past: love.

Shame has a way of settling itself into our bones and ..read more

Your Glory Welling Up, From Within

And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. John 17:10**

I am Yours. I can hide in the safety of another’s leadership over my life; leadership from One who is so kind.

You claim me. You aren’t afraid to own me, all of me and all of my lack gets wrapped up in You.

I adore You, Father.

You call me Yours — not to dictate or coldly govern, but You include me.

I play a part.

Can all that is perfect want anything more? Yet Your life is an invitation to the me who falls short, to participate in that perfect glory.

I am not only shared by You and Your Father but I get ..read more

His Thread

The morning had shaped up to be one which witnessed more griping than I’d normally like to see in a month. All the wheels were squeaking. And, so often, days like these fall when the calendar has something fun and unexpected.

Isn’t that the way of the Father — knowing our worst days, ahead of time, ready to surprise with love nonetheless.

We stopped, midstream. Paint brushes in hand and their disgruntled words hanging in the air, I called them to the same thing to which He’s been calling me. The only way to scale that hardened wall.

They’d apologized to me, each of them knowing their words and shoulder shrugs weren’t ignored in our home. But I ..read more

Not Just Above, But In

In every scraped knee, and “mommy, my belly hurts.” In every text from states away with request for urgent prayer, and in the circumstance from a few bedroom doors down in need of urgent prayer. In every lingering chest ache, stirred up by an absent-minded comment. In every to-do list which never got started before the day was finished. In every grand plan, thwarted. In every seeming demotion.

“He is over it all,” we say often. But do we believe He is in it?

The same blood which first coursed when He was made flesh on that starry-night so many years ago, runs its course through me. Every day. Every hour. Every minute is another opportunity for ..read more