Several years ago I took my parents on an expedition, at their request, to the cemetery where they will someday be buried. We stopped at the main building, found a map indicating the location of their plots, and drove to the site. I parked the car, and as they made their way across the grass,…
Tomorrow my friend Sarah will bury her husband, the first of my peer group to do so. And while she and I haven’t had much contact in the half-decade since I moved to a different state, Sarah will always be a special friend. When the devastating news of her loss reached me on Wednesday morning,…
The face value of my dad’s gift was only one dollar and thirty-nine cents, hardly a fortune and barely even a gift. But it was a treasure from the man I have loved all my life to the man I will love for the rest of my life. The recipient of the one-dollar coin and…
Reposting today in memory of my friend Tim, who met Jesus last night, and shortly thereafter, I’m sure, was reunited with his dearly loved wife, Judy. The original post was written in September 2015, and at the time, I was pretty sure I’d never see Tim again this side of the new earth, and if…
A three-tiered platter filled with treats isn’t really designed for a two-person party, but we’re using it nonetheless this New Year’s Eve. It was supposed to be part of a new holiday tradition in our house, but things didn’t turn out that way. At least this year. One of the challenges of living away from…
Much of my world right now is midsummer green—a jungle of tomato plants, a row of towering sunflowers, a trellis overrun by cucumber vines, and chicken wire covered with sprouting beans and peas. There is the promise of fresh produce everywhere I look. The sun is bright, the air is warm. Flowers are blooming, grass…
My dad and I stood at the double doors to the sanctuary, waiting for twelve bells to chime and the doors to swing open. Looking at me, he said, “I’ve waited a long time for this day,” and I said, “Me, too, Dad. Me, too.” What I didn’t say—because I would have come undone—is that…
“We might be in trouble” are not words you want to hear when it’s -12 degrees outside and you have 125 miles of desolate highway between you and home. It was New Year’s Eve, and we were finally on the other side of back-to-back road trips to celebrate Christmas with both of our families—road trips…
In one of my moves since amassing a library, my sister hefted a box across the room and asked, “What’s in here?! Bricks??” I think the answer to her question with respect to that particular box was “no,” but she was onto something about me: I do, actually, move bricks from one residence to the…
Two years ago this week, I drove across the country to a start a new life in an act of desperate faith that was probably more desperate than faith. My reason for moving was that it was the only door for change that God had left open, and I desperately needed a change. In the…
