Do It Afraid

This past weekend, my daughter had dance try-outs for the competition teams at the studio she attends. As I watched her get into line with 70 or so other little girls her age, all dressed in black leotards with their hair pulled tight into buns, then scurry into a...

Why Wouldn’t We Love Well?

“It’s just so amazing the way you can open yourselves up to their biological families.” This statement was said to me by a dear friend as we had dinner together one night and were discussing my adopted daughter’s birth family. How can you not? I think. I love these...

Repurpose, Recycle, Rejoice!

“What do you do with all that stuff?” I asked my dad. He’s lived on the same farm since the mid 60’s and has managed to acquire a few things. We walked through his shop, the barn, his storage shed, the garage, and the basement of the house—for starters. I was on...

Already, But Not Yet

Last semester, one of my professors came to class with a meditation around the idea of “already, but not yet.” I’ve never found an adequate one-liner that sums up all of Christianity, but this phrase intrigued me. Because it’s about the struggle, the in-between. It...

Is This Heaven?

“Lord, why do these children have to live like this?” I prayed as I stood in the dorm room of an orphanage in Kenya. My husband and I recently returned from a mission trip to Nairobi where we ministered to children both in church settings and in orphanages. At one...