Advent is here. We are straining forward each day with anticipation. But still, this season of darkness and yearning is upon me. The early day’s sun retreats leaving a smattering of white twinkling lights strung in rows across the tree like fingerprints. The candle’s flesh is melting down its sides like shedding skin and it flickers like a great hope in the darkness. I can’t help but feel my depression is an assault on God’s goodness trying to blind me to everything but the most vulgar and …
When You Are Not Fine
“I don’t want to live like a vagrant anymore,” I pray. “I don’t want to be known for my lack, my weakness, my constant recurring despair.” I inhabit a limited soul longing for the wide expanse of eternity. Sometimes I wonder aloud, “How long, Lord? How long must I wait?” I first stood in line in the Walmart pharmacy to pick up my tiny orange bottle of pills that were prescribed like a life-line, a desperate measure I didn’t want to believe I needed even after the tears crashed down as I sat …
Every True Thing: His Word is Good
I’m teaching the importance of words. I hope my kids learn this. But first I have to learn it myself and these lessons are hard learned. Words matter. The things we speak to each other frame the content of our lives. The things we speak to ourselves determine what we believe. So I teach my children God is good. His word is good. I teach them to usher in praise when the world seems to crumble and groan and stretch in anguish. I teach them that every broken thing cries out for redemption and …
