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All My Favorite People are Broken – Kintsukuroi Revisited
We snuck out to the back porch ready to tell each other secrets in the swampy Georgia heat. Sitting under the whirring fan, wine in hand, feet up, and heads laid back, we started our confessions. She broke her daughter’s spirit. I broke my son’s confidence. Her marriage was cracking where it used to be strong. My marriage was chipped and sometimes it hurt...
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Ostinato
“For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?” – T.S. Eliot – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock The stack of purple and blue pill...
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Sign of the Times
[Published on Evangelicals for Social Action 4/19/17] “I think I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think we should do this.” I bit my lip and put my hands in my pockets. “Don’t be nervous. Be proud. This is who we are,” my husband said. He’s used to my last-minute jitters. “What’s the point? Are we trouble-makers? Are we show-offs? I don’t know.” I glanced at...
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I Confess: I Don’t Want Donuts
[Published on the Redbud Post on 4/1/17] Last weekend, I had eleven 12-year-old boys in my basement for a youth retreat. It was chaotic, gross, and perfect. We heard unhindered laughing, chasing, yelling, and body noises through two floors and closed doors. The leaders talked straight about God and good choices. Our doorbell rang at all hours, announcing the arrival of more volunteer drivers, youth...
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No One is the Boss of Us
You know how to light a match, don’t you? I looked up at her and lied. She gave me the book of matches and watched me slowly draw the bud against the scratch. She grabbed it back, You’ve got to go fast, see? Boom! Zip! She laughed and gave me the lit match with her brown wrinkled hands. Put it in that hole there....
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The Waves – 20 Years of Marriage
One hot night in late July, a few weeks before our wedding, 20 years ago, I could hardly look at my handsome fiancé at dinner. He was happily talking about our new apartment, new jobs, and our honeymoon. I was trying to keep my food, and my long-held secret, down. He grabbed my hand, rubbed it with his calloused thumb, raised his eyebrows, and...
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FREE Family Tool Kit
Change takes time. I love watching turn-around shows because they give the satisfaction of a total transformation in less than an hour. It skips most of the slog and waiting and indecision, highlights one problem, offers a valiant solution, and then ta-da! The house, kitchen, hoarder’s room, bride, or dowdy dresser is now brand new. It’s addictive. I want that quick change everywhere, and get mad...
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Robins
Greta called out “Mama?” from her crib in the back of the house. We greeted each other with smiles and outstretched arms, like long lost lovers, before I carried her out to the front porch. She felt warm and soft and smelled of apples. We looked for our early morning creature friends from the white rocking chair. She stood on my thighs, squealing. I...
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I Stopped Praying for My Kids
Some people pray like a troubadour. Beaming about all the great things the Lover of their Soul has done. Their love is mutual and glorious. It’s dramatic and flowery, stomach flips and sighs. I’ve prayed like that, when my chubby baby smiled up me, and when I caught my husband looking at me from across the room. Some people pray like a tenant, leaving...
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Scabs and Scars
[featured on Perissos 2/29/16] At eight years old I overheard a woman say an Arabian prince could only choose a woman with no scars to be his princess. I was devastated. I had scars from mosquito bites, chicken pox, bike accidents, and scraping my feet in Gramma’s big cement pool. I also had a belly button, and wondered if those princes were smart enough...
