One of my favorite places to visit growing up was Platt’s Nursery just up the highway from our neighborhood, where its greenhouses were perched on one of the highest points in town. Mom would take us there each spring to pick out impatiens, petunias, and hanging baskets. When the family-owned business shut down a few … Continue reading America the Beautiful
Jared and I were talking to a dad from our church recently, and he was telling us about how he reads to his kids before bed most nights. On the way home, I told Jared about the books my dad would read to us at bedtime, and how we’d all sprawl across the living room … Continue reading Where the Green Train Goes
This piece was written for the May issue of the Lee Creek Baptist Church newsletter, Grace & Peace. For the past few springs, Jared and I have taken a few frames of our honeybees to a local elementary school for a presentation before summer break begins. A hundred kids will line up to squint into … Continue reading Sweeter Than Honey
This piece was written for the February issue of our church newsletter, Grace & Peace. Each year, I get a little better at remembering to plant bulbs. I wait until the garden has fallen asleep and the late chrysanthemums have stopped blooming, those first few frosts biting at their heads and turning them gray. One … Continue reading Bear Fruit With Patience
It was my parents’ idea to drop me off for the day at Mrs. Rosalie’s duplex in town. I wanted to learn how to sew a pair of palazzo pants, and Mrs. Rosalie had worked as a seamstress most of her life. Instead of plopping me in front of a YouTube video, my dad dropped … Continue reading Mrs. Rosalie
Sometimes, usually when I’m in the kitchen, I find myself thinking about my great-grandma Minerva, Papa Jay’s mom, who had a tight, little face, wore her black hair in a bun, and made him biscuits and gravy from scratch every morning. Papa is getting to an age when he can’t remember things well or often, … Continue reading A Long Line of Quiet Women
This piece was written for our church's November newsletter, Grace & Peace. When I was a little girl, I remember something Corrie ten Boom said that stayed with me: "When people come up and give me a compliment... I take each remark as if it were a flower. At the end of the day I … Continue reading A Bouquet of Thanks
Dear Maggie,* Once when I was a teenager, I went to a big concert by a Christian band-–the kind of concert where you feel the drums beat under your ribcage. The event was themed around one of the band’s new songs, which dealt with the worth of a young woman who doesn’t see herself as … Continue reading On Goldenrod & Body Image
This tribute was written for my grandma Naomi's memorial service. She entered Christ's presence Sunday morning, August 17th. My grandma Naomi was a lover of the little things. Looking out her and Papa’s sunroom windows this time of year---when the cicadas are full in the trees, the fish flipping down in the pond, and August … Continue reading With These She Was Content
"I hope when we find our 'house of dreams,' dearest, that there will be winds around it. I wonder where it is... that unknown house. That home of the future where we will have love and friendship and work... and a few funny adventures to bring laughter into our old age." ~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne … Continue reading Our Spring Wedding & Winds of Change
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