“The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18) Earlier in February marked 10 years since my dad's death. While I miss my daddy, I want to talk about my Abba. Early on, people outside of the family would remember the anniversary. Around the third anniversary, people asked me, “how are you?” I responded by saying "I'm ok." Many people pushed back against that. Some have been angry with me (or maybe for me).…
Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”(Mark 9:24)Today is Halloween. What does that mean to you? Halloween began as Samhain, first observed by Celtic Pagans. It marked their New Year, the end of summer, and the end of the harvest season. It also signaled the beginning of winter, which they associated with death. The Celts believed the veil between the living and the dead was especially thin on Samhain, which allowed spirits of the dead to visit…
“God’s one and only job description is to turn death into life. That’s what God does with every new springtime, every new life, every new season, every new anything.” — Richard Rohr The words above stand in tension with my past few weeks, as I said to more than one friend “Death is my constant companion of late.” Here in this season of Easter, of resurrection I’ve had more death than I’d like. Above you see a picture of a joyous occasion, the…
I am mourning the loss of two family members in recent weeks. My mother Mary died following a stroke in Tucson, Arizona on May 29th. My brother-in-law Geoffrey died following a massive heart attack in Meridian, Idaho on June 3rd. My husband Glenn and I have been through every emotion since these events and there have been and will continue to be difficult days. There have been moments of pure love and grace during this time. I’ve been trying to identify what practices…
Did you grow up learning children’s songs at church? One of the earliest hymns I learned was “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” whose words were written by Mrs. Cecil Alexander around 1848 in a collection of hymns for children. The tune I learned is often paired with the words she wrote, a melody coming from a century earlier than that. You can find it in our blue “With One Voice” hymnal #767, and the final verse is “God gave us eyes to see…
Recently my dear friend's father died of COVID 19. Noble Dean was a member of Faith Lutheran Church in Caldwell, and a man whose life embodied, it seemed to me, Christ's promise of joy. It's hard to imagine a man who had a greater zest for life and for sharing it with everyone he met. You can read Noble's obituary here. As Noble was dying, his family gathered around him. His oldest grandson, an accomplished bass, led the family in some of Noble's favorite…
Fear not, earth! Be glad and celebrate! God has done great things. Joel 2:21I love this picture because of the cycle of life that it shows. There are the blackened trees that were burned in a forest fire. There is the vibrancy of the fall foliage that will soon be carpeting the ground below. In the midst of this death and near death, there is the life of the evergreen trees.When life seems really hard, as it does in these days, we can…
As I write this, I am up in Post Falls by my father’s side. We are traveling together once again. He always loved to travel. We went to North Dakota from Montana often. Although this was a long drive, we always had fun with my dad singing songs and challenging us to road games such as slug bug and the license plate challenge.
“But now ask the beasts to teach you,And the birds of the air to tell you;Or the reptiles on earth to instruct you,And the fish of the sea to inform you.Which of all these does not knowThat the hand of God has done this?In this hand is the soul of every living thing,And the life of all humankind.”Job 12:7-10I live in a treehouse. No, really, I do! It’s actually a third-floor apartment with a balcony overlooking a nice courtyard, but with a beautiful…
When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:30It’s Good Friday—the darkest day of the Christian story. Jesus, the Innocent, was cruelly nailed to the cross and died. Here his story seemed to end where we fear our stories will end too—at our deaths. But on this darkest day, God was at work showing that in this story God wasn’t defeated yet! Easter is yet to come. But we…
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