I used to go to church with a lady who got teary-eyed on September 11th, remembering how her husband could have easily flown as a pilot for United that day in 2001. As the Lord would have it, her husband wasn't working that morning, but Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania was a plane … Continue reading Where Were You?
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
Books are a love language, and one of the ways Jared demonstrated his love for me early on was by lending me his pastoral library. I love books, Jared loves books (he has more than I do), and he’s always been generous with them. I’d come home from my visits to Arkansas with commentaries and … Continue reading Two Little Tributes
My good friends lost their mom and grandma back in December. We are such good friends, in fact, that I'd only ever called her "Nana." Nana was known for her knitting and quilting, so at her memorial, her family hung her quilts in their kitchen for folks to look at. They filled a basket with … Continue reading She Knitted Things
When I was six years old, my dad took me to visit a man in the hospital whose name was Kirk. Kirk was one of Dad’s closest friends. They had a Paul and Timothy kind of brotherhood, where Kirk had broken free from a stormy past and become one of Dad's greatest mentors in the … Continue reading Visiting Kirk
A few days ago, I dug my sourdough starter out from the back of the basement fridge, lifted off the tea towel, and found it was black and hard as stone. I said, Of course. This would be the year my starter died. My biologist friend had told me just last week that it’s quite … Continue reading The Year My Sourdough Starter (Nearly) Died
On the day the moon eclipsed the sun, I happened to be with Jared in Arkansas, where spring had brought the dandelions a little sooner and where the bees were busy at their hives. I also happened to be near totality, where, in the big, southern sky, the sun dwindled to nothing more than a … Continue reading The Ninth Hour
A True Story from Home April is young, and I’m in my garden as often as I can be. Today, I have company. My nephew, Bennett, is kneeling in the zucchini patch beside a Red Ryder wheelbarrow. He asked if he could help, so he’s weeding the clover that crept up in early March, tossing … Continue reading A Garden in Babylon
I watched one afternoon in October to see my neighbor’s chainsaw whir and whine and whistle clean through the trunk of his tree, and I felt the wrongness of it, as he stood on a ladder to dismantle it limb-by-limb. “I was putting off knowing it. All that day there had been a crashing in … Continue reading Upon the Death of a Bradford Pear
A True Story from Home To me, Mrs. Olave Thurston was the lady in my grandpa’s stories---as if she was another Ma Ingalls or Miss Rumphius. When we ate chicken for dinner, Papa would tell how Mrs. Thurston raised, butchered, and boiled her own. When spring came and I cut fresh flowers for the table, … Continue reading Gravestone Flowers
bethanyjlincks.com 