Some of you know, I’ve been taking classes at Fuller Seminary. I’m taking one class a quarter, so it’s slow going. But I’m able to keep up with the course work and still do some of the other things I need to do, like drive two teenagers around every afternoon when they get home from…
When I was a young girl, I went to a loving church that taught me the Bible. We had hymn-sings, and Sunday afternoon pot-lucks, we had Christian pageants and my mom sang in a quartet. We prayed for the sick and loved one another. It was a small church, with only one pastor, and his…
I am a huge fan of eating together around the table. It’s one of the things I value most in this world. Eating around the table with people I love and respect does something to make me feel grounded and hopeful. It creates a structure in my routine and helps me feel connected to the…
I’m big on hope. I care about helping people foster and nurture the possibility of hope. Hope isn’t a feeling we can force. After living forty years on this little blue planet, I’ve realized we go through seasons when we have heaps of hope, when everything around the corner is overwhelming positive. But we also…
I quit drinking. Just up and decided I needed to be finished with alcohol for a good long while. I woke up one Saturday morning and knew in my deepest parts, I was finally ready to quit. I had the internal focus, and the self-awareness to say, “I’m finished.” From an outside perspective, it might…
Hi there, Lent is coming around the corner. Ash Wednesday is just a few days away. Lent hits at the tail end of winter and right at the cusp of spring, when we remember the forty days Jesus wandered in the wilderness and was tempted by Satan. Usually, people choose to give up something as…
Hey friends, I hope you all had a really good weekend. I have a small gift that John and I made for a retreat we did a couple weeks ago. It’s a spiritual exercise using the four points of the compass. I thought you might like to use it for Lent this year. I’m going…
My very first Bible came to me in a Christmas stocking when I was about five years old. A tiny New Testament that I still have and that seemed like a treasure trove of all things good. As I considered writing about reading the Bible, my first thought was how tired people are of hearing that…
I mentioned that I’m teaching Spanish for a local high school right now. Most of the classes I teach are responsible, respectful, and engaging. There are definitely issues with overusing cell-phones in my class, but after confiscating three phones and requiring they conjugate verbs to get them back, almost everyone has become much more efficient at…
For the past six years my life has been in a constant state of upheaval. I sold my home in the States. Sold my cars. Moved to Chile. I lived in Chile for three years and during those three years moved about four times, published a novel, went back and forth to Seattle for one…
