Raise your hand if you’ve ever had your pupils dilated at the eye doctor. Isn’t it just the worst? Ugh. But check this out. So during the test, they drop an irritant on your eye to widen the pupil and let in the maximum amount of light, letting them see deep inside and check the …
Letters to and from God
This is me. This is how I pray. It’s how I prayed for two years, actually. Scurrying to the secret place and writing longhand every morning through intense soul-pain, repressed emotions, and life changes, tears of rage and gratitude dried in the margins. I stopped last December after a major revelation brought closure to issues …
Hum if you don’t know the words
What do you do when the words don’t come? When your heart is burdened and breaking and you close your eyes to pray but nothing comes out? What then? Anything. Scream.Cry.Babble.Laugh.Breathe. Sing.Dance.Build.Paint.Write. Prayer isn’t about the words you say just like worship isn’t about carrying a tune. Your entire life can be worship; your entire …
I need an adult
As the news escalates, a previously-rare thought is surfacing more: I don’t want to be the grownup. I don’t know what I’m doing! I don’t know if it’s time to wear masks to the store or for my husband to shower when he gets home. I don’t know how to explain that the mall, …
Kingdom good isn’t the same as our good
If you must weep today, make it for joy. For this day that marks the end of death and sin.
The double ache of Jesus
Yesterday on our walk, my daughter casually mentioned she’d been praying the night before. “That’s great, baby. What did you say?” “I prayed that I don’t want to go to Heaven yet.” Every parent just got the same icicle in their heart that I did. I asked why she thought she might go to Heaven …
Known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns
There are known knowns and there are known unknowns. But there are also unknown unknowns―things we don’t know that we don’t know. When people greeted Jesus on Palm Sunday, joyfully crying “Hosanna!” they had all three kinds of facts. They knew they needed a savior.They knew they didn’t know how he’d do it.They couldn’t imagine …
Peace beyond peace
There’s a peace that goes beyond peace. One more universal than doves and olive branches.One more profound than pre-dawn silence.One more complete than your boxed set of Friends. It’s the peace that existed in Eden,that gave Abraham his strength,that steadied Jesus in Gethsemane. Not the peace of this world, the Roman “pax.”A peace so other …
Love is available even here
A friend of mine has a reminder tattooed on the outside of her wrist where it’s always visible. It says: “Is Love available even here?” I haven’t seen that tattoo in person for a long time, but I think of it often, especially now. In the wild, weird world of today, in the frustrations and …
I don’t want to go back to normal
Something I’m hearing a lot lately is “when things go back to normal.” And I find it kind of irritating. I get it. Our lives are seriously disrupted and unpredictable right now. We want things to settle down, even out, and be normal again. But can I make a confession? I kinda hope they don’t. …
A coronavirus selah
Ontario is officially holding in place for the next two weeks, and the news coming from places already doing so has made people twitchy here. Specters of instability, claustrophobia, boredom, and scarcity are sending ripples of fear through the collective unconscious. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Spending time in social isolation—for the …