Nine years ago today, Eric picked me up for prayer meeting, but we didn't walk over to church. Instead, we got in his pickup and drove to the same spot where he'd asked me out, and he got down on one knee, and he finally asked the question I'd been waiting for him to ask for so long.
And the answer of course was yes.
Once upon a time, October 25th didn’t mean much to me.
Who knew it would become a date looked forward to for months? Eric's birthday.
I had the funny idea to look back and see what I was doing on all the October 25ths before I met Eric. Apparently nothing picture-worthy, except for in 2008, when I was both chopping wood and wearing a wedding dress (not at the same time). The wedding dress seems like a funny coincidence. The dress was not mine, and neither was the wood actually, and I think I'll spare you the pictures, but suffice it to say, October 25th didn't mean much to me before 2014.
And once upon a time, come to think of it, Eric didn’t mean much to me either.
Who knew . . . 😊 ...continue reading
Valentine’s Day, and the days surrounding it.
Last year, it was candles and flower petals and chocolate-covered strawberries. It was takeout from Outback Steakhouse in the comfort of our own home. (Thanks, Covid.) It was hand-written cards and a quiet evening. Literally the calm before the storm. Because it was also an ice storm. A long power outage. An absent husband from all his running around helping other people.
This year, there were no candles, flower petals, or strawberries. There was no storm either.
Life isn’t ever perfect. Sometimes one part of it is, sometimes another part of it is, but it’s never all just entirely perfect. And that’s part of the beauty of it. ...continue reading
Two years and seven months ago, I came home from a summer stint in Madras to the news that a new family was moving from Ohio and that they were going to attend our church. It was so odd to me that I asked Andy a couple times if it was actually going to happen. In all my years at Hopewell that I could remember, nobody had ever moved from back east and started attending our church. It'd mean new people in the youth group, new faces at church, perhaps new friends.
I wasn't overly excited.
I should have been.
But how was I supposed to know that in that family of seven that traveled across the US in a U-haul and a van was a boy who would turn to a man before my eyes and that that man was the one whom I would marry?
I had no idea. . . ...continue reading
A barren hill, scraped by a listless wind, bald and white against the black sky.
A rabid crowd, garbed in grey, shouting for death but not yet knowing that for One death brings life.
A rough-hewn cross, etched in blood.
A Man.
But I cannot look at the Man, cannot bear to see that skin blackened with blood, that body so tortured by countless stripes and merciless beatings.
So I wander through the crowd, and I search their eyes for any relief from the dread that is overpowering on this day, but I do not find it.
I see the children, with their huge, solemn eyes, and the echo of their late hosannas cracks like thunder through my mind. Their voices are stilled now. There is no joy left in their faces. I see only fear. Fear, and a numbing knowing. ...continue reading
