Dear readers, It’s been a long time since I’ve written in this space. 2020 has changed nearly everything. To update you on where I’ve been: in between homeschooling and hybrid schooling and distance learning (Lord, have mercy), I’ve launched a few new side projects that I hope you’ll join. A new newsletter: The Holy Labor I love to lift up the creative, life-giving work of friends and strangers. So in each edition I share a short essay (much like I used to blog here), gather my favorite reads for you (new books, intriguing articles, prayers, and poetry), and invite you to see your own life and work in holy light. Click here to sign up for free. A new space on Instagram: Create in the Chaos I’ve long wanted to support other writer-parents. Now that Covid has brought even more chaos to family life, it was the perfect (imperfect!) time to launch. Each week I’m sharing writing tips, tricks, and inspiration from authors. If you’re trying to do creative work in … [Read more...] about announcing Emmanuel
Spirituality in Daily Life
what our kids can teach us now
"Who could we pray for today?" I ask the question with a newborn squirming in my lap and a toddler climbing up my knees. I'm sweating and exhausted and leading this morning prayer only out of sheer stubbornness to the scrawled schedule on the white board in our dining-room-turned-classroom. Briefly, I consider a short list of all the places I would rather be: lounging on a tropical beach, working in my office, getting my teeth cleaned, honestly anywhere else. But the kids interrupt my daydreaming. "For all the people who are sick." "For the doctors and nurses." "For all our friends and teachers." "For people who have died." "For scientists who are working on the vaccine." "For our neighbors and everyone else staying at home." "For trucks." [We interpret the 2 year-old's intercession as a petition for transportation workers.] Prayers spill out of them, flowing fast as the milk that tumbled from a cup over breakfast. I am chastened, humbled, reminded. I … [Read more...] about what our kids can teach us now
a month that changed the world
One month ago, I was in the hospital. The same hospital where my baby girls were born four years earlier. The same hospital where they each died in my arms, days later. One month ago, I was holding our newborn son. The same baby I pleaded to God to keep safe as I spent day after day, week after week, in the hospital with preeclampsia. The same baby who wasn't due to be born until this week. By the time I left the hospital for good, my world had been turned upside down. We had a premature baby in the back seat. We had spent the anniversaries of our daughters' deaths in grief's ground zero. We had left our lives uprooted, torn away from home and work without warning. I couldn't make sense of how birth and death had broken me open all over again. It felt like too much to process, on top of a scary delivery and a slow recovery that left my heart literally sick. But even then, I had no idea what was coming next. None of us did. . . . What seems like a lifetime ago, … [Read more...] about a month that changed the world
the wisdom of unknowing
If you have young children in your life, odds are good you have recently sat in a movie theatre strewn with popcorn, listening to a snowman sing: See, that will all make sense when I am older,So there's no need to be terrified or tense.I'll just dream about a timeWhen I'm in my aged prime'Cause when you're olderAbsolutely everything makes sense! I roared with laughter, spilling the popcorn bucket, and nearly every adult in the theatre did the same. Because what could be further from the truth? . . . Last night, our 5 year-old (bedecked in Olaf pajamas and clutching a stuffed snowman to his chest) interrupted his own rendition of the song to ask me quite seriously: Is it true? Does it all make sense when you are older? I laughed out loud again. No, I told him. When I was a kid, I used to think so. I thought adults had it all figured out. I thought I would know a lot more by now. Turns out I have a lot more questions as a grown-up. It doesn't all make sense when … [Read more...] about the wisdom of unknowing
