Looking for the North Star

                               "A season of happiness and wonder that makes you serious" C.S. Lewis on Lent

I started observing Lent four years ago. And I mean observe in the loosest, most beginn...

I stamped my feet in the slushy snow, and glanced eagerly at the heated building only a few yards away. People were milling in and out with steaming drinks and treats. Music drifted out of the doors that opened periodically. 

I wanted to get in there. We had checked the...

Definition of Selah:

Pause, reflect deeply, take a breath.

I read it in a book. That's where most good ideas come from. During the month of December the book club I belong to was reading Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. In her chapter titled Argonauta, she wro...

Have you ever felt so lost and alone surrounded by people you love and you know love you, and yet you don't even recognize yourself anymore? 

That is how I felt last summer.

I was trying to make it to a funeral to support some good friends of ours who had lost their mom,...

It happened again the other night. I was blindsided by insecurity. I walked into an evening I had been looking forward to, and rather than stepping into the room with joy, I suddenly felt the heavy weight of judgment and awkwardness. It was through no fault of anyone...

It's real classy at my house this evening. I'm sitting in an unmade bed eating tater tots, having a moment of quiet and wondering how I even got here. It's been a day of struggles. There was bickering among siblings, spilled paint, spilled coffee, tears over school wor...

I thought I knew what bravery, courage, faith and hope looked like. Until recently, I put these characteristics into a neat little box with missionaries, martyrs, or spiritual giants I had read about, like Corrie ten Boom, or Elisabeth Elliot. But lately, I've begun to...

My peonies are just beginning to break through the ground. I look forward to their arrival after I cut back the dried up, tired shrub every fall. They are in my front flower beds, and the first flowers you see when you walk up to our door. Their absence is felt and not...

I slipped the forest green sweater over my head and sighed happy. It fit perfectly and I loved the color, even under the terrible lighting in the dressing room. Mentally I checked my way through the pros and cons. It was on the spendier side, and hand wash only, but th...

"Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with the dream." Josephine Neuse 

As I sat tucked inside a cozy restaurant, I had a view through the windows of snow siftin...