What is your favorite memory of your mom? Maybe it had something to do with baking cookies, or nighttime prayers, or a time you really made her laugh. One of my sweetest, happiest memories with my mom is just a little snapshot in my mind, as she and I walked together in downtown Indianapolis one […]
Read more "The Mothering Spirit"How many kindnesses did you experience this week? Did someone let you go first in line when your arms were full of groceries? Or give you the right of way in traffic when you didn’t really deserve it? Or maybe a kindly person bought you coffee or lunch or sent you a card or otherwise […]
Read more "Love’s Everyday Miracles"When you think of the word wholehearted what comes to mind? Maybe children playing on a beautiful summer day, or an orchestra in full song, an athlete competing, striving for first place, or maybe a person deep in prayer. Wholehearted—whatever we may be doing when we feel that way—has something to do with being “all […]
Read more "Wholehearted"The book of Ruth has always been one of my favorite books in the Bible. It is one of only two books named after women (the other is Esther, whose faith saved the children of Israel from a devious, genocidal plot). The story of Ruth is not big and heroic and dramatic like that, though—instead, […]
Read more "Come Home"This week I heard something on the radio that I think has been a long time coming. Companies large and small—from chocolate companies to homemade crafts to travel businesses—have started giving people the option of “opting out” of Mother’s Day promotions, recognizing that after an unthinkable amount of loss in a pandemic year, many people […]
Read more "Snapshots of Mom"We each have, tucked away in our hearts, memories of extra special moments throughout our lives when we felt especially loved. In fact, it’s a wonderful thing to do, once in a while—an exercise that’s good for our heart and our hope–to revisit those moments in our lives, starting from the time we were very […]
Read more "To Love Truly"Memories are such funny things. This week, out of the blue, I remembered a moment from more than 30 years ago that became the seed for this morning’s message. My brother John had come to visit when I was living in Brown County, and we were having coffee in the kitchen that morning when he […]
Read more "Our Part in Peace"Well no matter how much we plan or hope or buy, Christmas this year—in 2020—is destined to be a Christmas like no other. We’ve already had 10 months of unexpected and trying circumstances, and now, as Christmas grows close, the pandemic is impacting even our best-loved traditions. The family events that are such a big […]
Read more "A New Chance to Love"Here in central Indiana, we are having one of the most beautiful falls I can remember. And that follows an unusually perfect and balanced summer in which we experienced no drought, only short stretches of humidity, and surprisingly few storms and tornado warnings. How kind of God to turn up the dial on beauty and […]
Read more "Unique and Precious"Those of you on our Wednesday night Zoom call heard me describe the events of last Sunday—Christopher and Ashley’s wedding—as one of the five best days of my life. All week I feel I’ve been floating along, buoyed by the love and magic of that day. There really is something to the idea that moments […]
Read more "A Simple Love"
The Space between the Words 