Five Gallons of Grace
Two and a half years. That’s how long it’s been since I stood among our brothers and sisters in South Africa, and this first week of August, I’m going back. But this trip carries two firsts that make it unlike any before it. The first: I’m taking my mother. Four years ago, when we last […]
Let It Be a Planting
Ella, walking with her mom Yesterday evening, our supper table was full. Beck and I were there with our six children, along with her brother Mark, his wife Bessie, and their four daughters. Somewhere between passing plates and laughing over the day’s events, we heard a story that gave us fresh insight into the mysterious […]
Who Is Being Trained?
Last month, I told you about the evening we walked down the caliche lane to the Heritage Mustangs barn — Sean, Aaron, and me — and how a once-wild mustang that used to walk twenty miles for a drink of water sauntered up to my fourteen-year-old and lowered her head for a pat. I told […]
Limits and Glory
How Authority Works in the Body of Christ I want to put some flesh on the bones of what we have been feeling about healing and oneness among ourselves right now. This is not a new theme for me, but it has been deepening as I have been leading my children through 1 Corinthians, as […]
The Crowded Table
I pulled away from my desk late afternoon—too many files open on the iMac: ten essays in progress, a theology textbook review, a high school history curriculum half-drafted, emails, messages—and crossed the hallway into the kitchen. The effort to clear my head became instantly successful. Rebekah was pulling a pan of cranberry-studded biscuits from the […]
Where the Light Lingers
“Babe, I’m gonna take a walk with the boys down bottom to check on the horse and donkey,” I said, sauntering out the front door after supper to find Sean and Aaron tossing a yellow ball back and forth in the lush grass in front of Mom’s house—her place adjoining ours. It’s a beautiful spring […]
Provider, Not Predator
5:15 A.M. The car doors closed quietly, so as not to wake the house. Sean, Tina, and Aaron settled in, and we pulled out onto Gholson Road in the dark, eventually joining the mad rush of I-35 north toward Oklahoma. We needed to reach Paul’s Valley by 9:00 to meet Uncle Zain at the Mustang […]
Will He Remain Alone?
A meditation on resurrection, multiplication, and the life of Christ revealed in His people There is something in us that will never grow unless something burns. There is a tree in the mountains, a lodgepole pine, that drops its cones each year. Inside those cones are seeds, full of life and potential, yet completely sealed. […]
Participating in Life
A Meditation on Work, Family, and the Rewards of Real Living. There was a moment of pause just now before I began writing . . . just long enough to realize I didn’t want to send a typical newsletter. I thought instead I would let you into something more ordinary . . . and more […]
Springtime of the Heart
A Meditation on Renewal, Warning, and the Voice of God The Wind of Life It is impossible for me to step outside at this time of year without sensing a renewed wind of life and hope. There is something about spring—the indomitable persistence of life—rising again from the dry, drab doldrums of winter to reassert […]