Confession: God has been so good to us. A year ago I was packing boxes, preparing for our first move of three in eight months. I was dreaming of living in The Gray House someday, but felt like Abraham beginning a journey-with-an-unknown-destination. I put a time capsule note on the bottom of one of the …
Confession: I love growing things. One of my happiest jobs was working in a greenhouse for parts of many summers as a child and teenager. I still don’t know much about plants, but I love having my hands in good rich dirt. There is something magic about those first green leaves! Current Project 1: My …
Confession: I am probably the only one in this progressively benighted age who still plays with counted cross-stitch. I haven’t done it for years and felt pleasantly like a 12-year-old again, but I was trying for rich and varied textures on a baby patchwork blanket I’m making to donate. More on that project when I’m …
Confession: I have the coolest, funniest, bravest sister in the world. I talked with her for an hour today, and she had me howling with laughter over her stories of chemo side effects. Later this afternoon, she cut her hair to donate to Wigs for Kids before she loses it. From her I am learning that …
Confession: I am interested in at least 5,302 projects that I don’t know anything about. And I am impatient with my inability to be and do everything I want to. Last November God blessed us with an incredible property—a big gray house, a couple of creeks, and ten acres of land, part wooded and part …
4. When one of my children takes a completely free-choice step toward Good. …and a bonus, because this one cannot be left out: 5. When we sing.
Confession: Sometimes I hate what I am doing. Yesterday was one of those days for me. By the kids’ bedtime I was frazzled and ready to snap. Here is one of the holy escapes I have found: I head for the road. I call it a holy escape, though the sins that lead to it …
Confession: I love my town. I never thought I would say that, when as a bride I moved from fast-paced, up-to-date central Ohio to backwater Meadville. But I say it now, and every time I return from an absence I say it again. I love my town. I’m so happy I live here. Now that …
Confession: I used to shop at Wal-Mart. When I was a teenager I actually liked it. Last year in the worst of my struggle with depression, I had lots of shopping-related lows, and Wal-Mart seemed worst of all to me… a forced immersion into pop values, consumerism, and futility. Of course I had heard rumblings …
Confession: I’ve never liked the Serenity Prayer. Anything that overused, she thought, has to turn to rot after a while. And it seems too… serene. A little folding of the hands to rest. Last month at the local ladies seminar I read the whole prayer, for the first time, and it made all the difference. It …