An Unexpected Journey

  Yet Hope returns when I remember this one thing- the Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning as sure as the sunrise. Lamentations 3:21-23 (GNT) There aren’t very many things in our  ever changing world that seem to hold fast and remain the same day after day. Two things that have remained untouched by time my entire life are the sunrise and my grandmother’s house. My Mimi    lived in the same house in a tiny town in central Alabama since 1940ish. When she moved there she was in her early 20’s with one tiny tot or maybe two. It was a two bedroom house that they added onto over the years. But in my lifetime I could always count on the old swingset in the backyard to be there. The tree she planted as a young adult had grown into a massive oak that seemed unchanging and committed to outliving us all.    The pale blue walls and carpet of her living room were always inviting in a calming sort of way. Two years ago my grandmother fin...

Dearest Makiah, It’s hard to know what to write you on your 16th birthday. I’ve been writing these birthday letters for 12 years now. Sunday was Mother’s Day, and I sat in church singing with my arm around my mom.    Her mom went to be with you just a short while ago at the age of 99.    And I felt here we are- two generations, arms entwined, bookended by a mom and a daughter both in heaven… and I imagined a glimpse of us all in a row not separated by time or space… Now I’m sitting, thinking, beside a pond only a few feet from a mother duck who is trailed by her little ducklings. They watch her every move and do exactly what she does. Not wandering more than a few inches from her as they swim.    Close beside her.    Safe.   “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” Psalm 91:4 It surges up in my mind.   And the hot tears rush down my cheeks...

  A friend shared tonight about Hannah in the bible.  Hannah was a woman in the Old Testament who had a sister wife.  Yep! Did you know that was in the bible?  And there were problems.  Real sister wife problems!  The story tells us that the “other wife” had children, but Hannah did not.  It says her husband gave food to the other wife and their kids, but he gave Hannah a “double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb (1 Sam. 1:5).”  Soooo of course there was jealousy and mocking and unequal love… and well, all the stuff you would imagine.   But what grabbed me is that the scripture says several times that the Lord himself closed Hannah’s womb.  My friend posed the question- how many times has the Lord closed a door for us on purpose, but we couldn’t understand it?  Think of all the agony Hannah suffered- the bible says “year after year” as this went on.  She could see the pain in front of her, but ...