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Jesus Loves Me
I stood at the kitchen sink, suds up to my wrists, plugging away at dinner dishes. To my left, my one year old daughter stood at her own toddler size pink kitchen pretending to to be just like Mommy. I grinned at her babbling and swaying pigtails, as she stuck a pretend loaf of bread into her oven. As we both busied ourselves, my daughter’s babble broke out into song. With confidence and gusto, she belted, “Je-sus loooves meee! I know! Biiible so!!!” Night after night, week after week, month after month, I had sung her the simple song, “Jesus Loves Me.” In her most fussy nights of teething, the…
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Give Thanks for a Little
"Give thanks for a little, and you will find a lot." — West African Proverb I tore those simple words out of a health and wellness magazine a year or two ago and hung them on the fridge. After a while they started to blend in, feeling ordinary just like the other papers and cards and magnets cluttered around them. I'd glance at them occasionally, but their poignancy seldom stuck with me. The page hung that way for weeks, and even months, until I started reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts Devotional. The book’s challenge to count my blessings and daily write them down—until I reach one thousand of them in…
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50 Shades of Blue
Last Sunday at the 2015 Grammy’s our friend Brooke Axtell appealed to women trapped in abuse to raise their voice and escape like she did. When the man she loved began to abuse her she said, “I was stunned…I believed he was lashing out because he was in pain, and needed help. I believed my compassion could restore him and our relationship. My empathy was used against me. I was terrified of him and ashamed I was in this position. What bound me to him was my desire to heal him.” The Grammys audience erupted in applause as did The Washington Post, ABC News, Time magazine, Salon, Slate and many…
