Dear Maggie,* Last May, Jared and I found ourselves in that funny place of not-yet-being-engaged but knowing we would be pretty soon, if know what I mean. It’s a gentle transition you don’t necessarily talk about, but that’s written all over a girl’s face and obvious in the things she starts buying: dishes, for example. … Continue reading To a Girl Engaged
On the Vocation of Nursing Jared and I spent one long week in the hospital back in February, watching his grandpa struggle to live. We stood at his bed rails all hours of the day, watching the nurses come, check, chart, rearrange IVs, then pass the clipboard of notes to the next nurse, then the … Continue reading Take Care
I called Mom from the kitchen the other morning while doing four things concurrently—telling her about the weekend, emptying the sink of dishes, washing towels and bedsheets, and making a grocery list. I was also thinking about how I needed to water the garden, make the bed, and take out the compost bucket. Mom herself … Continue reading Wife & Mother
A month or so before we started dating, Jared offered to send me seeds in the mail. This surprised me, because I didn’t know many guys who planted gardens. I knew fewer who had an abundance of heirloom seeds on hand. When I thought about it, Jared was the only guy I’d ever talked to … Continue reading Seeds in the Mail
After dinner last night, I came across a journal entry I wrote on October 20th of last year. Today was the Lord’s Day, it began—one of many that I have spent at Jared’s church. On that particular Sunday in autumn, we had read a Psalm on the drive to church; he’d set the thermostats while … Continue reading There and Back Again
In the home where Jared and I are going to live after we’re married, there is a step ladder in the middle of the living room. There’s a thick layer of dust on the floors, tools on the kitchen counters, missing toilet seats, and old bedsheets in the bathtub because that seemed like the cleanest … Continue reading What Will Be
A True Story from Home Last February was gray and long, as the lean months before spring tend to be when winter feels old. But in my mailbox on Edgewood Road, there was something new: letters from Jared about what he hoped to plant in his garden that spring. He wrote of marigolds and tomatoes. … Continue reading When You Come Marchin’ Home
Papa Jay married Mema in the preacher’s living room. He was on leave, and they had decided to go ahead with it, so Mema ran out to buy a dress and some flowers. Papa wore his uniform. Aunt Margarete baked a pecan pie to serve afterward, and Papa still talks about how good it was. … Continue reading A Wartime Love
A Story of Christmas Present It’s that time of year when the trees go up in the church foyer, and the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes get stacked, and I stand in the green fluorescence of Dollar Tree, and everything on the shelves is plastic and off-brand, and I wonder if the kid getting my box … Continue reading Glory in a Box
It’s Sunday morning and our pastor is there early, drinking his coffee, straightening the chairs in the sanctuary, and, I think, praying over them. The heater makes the ceiling creak as Jason and Courtney hold hands to pray before he’ll lead worship in a voice that sounds like Mark Hall’s from Casting Crowns, and she’ll … Continue reading Sunday Morning
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