Allow me to share a story with you from the annals of family lore. It was the summer of 2006; I was sixteen years old at the time, and all eighteen of us aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents were gathered to celebrate my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. . .

I am ready to be happy.

To let myself be content, not striving.

I am ready to be free.

Lord, have your way in me.

I wrote these words in my journal last week as a declaration, a promise, and a hope. A wise friend had recently shared with me her practice of writing or speaking aloud, “I am ready to be happy.” This simple statement seemed so obvious. . .

Some weeks, the thoughts and words flow easily. Other weeks, it feels like every word is squeezed out of a nearly-dry reservoir of inspiration. This was one of those weeks. I tried all morning to just write, for heaven’s sake, but when the time came to take my parents to the airport in the early afternoon I hadn’t written a thing…

I wrote this poem while sitting at my family’s kitchen table in Chelan, watching a thick blanket of smoke from a local fire obscure more and more until all I could see was a couple of steps beyond the windows…

He approached us with rapid steps and a worried look, calling out “Hey—are you guys part of the neighborhood?” Drew and I nodded, stopping our evening walk to see what this man intended to say to us. As he drew closer, I noticed bruises on his eye and chin…

Saturday mornings in our home are waffle mornings, which is a tradition my husband and I take very seriously. . .

Drew and I recently had the pleasure of hosting a touring musician and his artist wife in our home. J and Torrey are the kind of people you meet and almost instantly know you could be good friends if only you had a shared context and they did not live on the opposite side of the country…

When is the last time you fell to your knees—in awe, in terror, in supplication?…

I was sitting on a couch in the back of a 15-foot U-Haul in the parking lot of a storage facility, waiting for more boxes to arrive. My family is moving again, for the 15th+ time in their lives. But this time, it feels permanent…

I’d like to begin this piece by thanking my spiritual director, Summer. She has journeyed with me since 2017—long enough to be able to detect meaningful patterns in my spiritual life as well as identify and celebrate areas of growth…

It happened again. I was praying the Lord’s Prayer along with my congregation on Sunday when a line took hold of me and would not loosen its grip: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…

I wrote this poem after several attempts at writing a full blog post for this week. Sometimes, words just aren’t enough, especially in the wake of tragedy and suffering…

I first prayed the prayer that is changing my life under the fluorescent lights of a Walmart return line…

On my sister’s birthday, I asked for rainbows. It was a kaleidoscopic weather day, in which the clouds move faster than your racing heart and the sun and darkness shift like smoke and the rain falls on your upturned face but so does the light upon your shoulders…

The first time Drew and I held hands, I experienced two things at once: exhilaration and guilt. My divorce had been finalized earlier that day, and I remember my mother and sisters creating a special dinner outside on our deck overlooking Lake Sammamish…

Today is Maundy Thursday. On this day two thousand years ago, Jesus was weeping in a garden. He had just finished a meal with his closest friends, knowing that one would betray him, the other deny him, and still more would fall asleep on him. But Jesus loved them anyways…

Get ready for a sort-of embarrassing poem straight from the heart of my exuberant eight-year-old self…

Have you ever seen Disney’s 1991 animated version of Beauty and the Beast? If not, please put your entire life on hold and go watch it. It is enchanting, through and through. When I was a little girl, I had a giant princess-shaped pillow with Belle on the front holding a stack of books in one hand and her skirt in the other, posing in a winsome “Who, Me?” fashion…

This week, I’m simply sharing a poem. My soul and body have been weary, so I wasn’t planning to write anything since it has become continuously apparent that sorrow cannot, as it were, be confined to a one-week acceptable grieving period—as much as I have tried…

Spring never fails to surprise me. Each year, it seems like such an impossibility that life could blossom from the sterile harshness of winter. But it does. This Tuesday morning, I set out with a hopeful heart into the damp possibility of spring…