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. . . when vomit drew me closer to Jesus
When I say Otto was sick this week, I mean the poor little guy was for reals sick. He counted each time he threw up. I didn’t realize he was keeping track. There he was, little silver bowl in hand, emptying his stomach contents. “Nine,” he stated. Nine times. It wiped him out. It wiped me out. And it took my sheets out too. But whatever. London was sick all night. Otto started in early early morning after I had stolen a few hours of rest. While cleaning up Otto I heard footsteps racing across the upstairs hallway. Bergen was joining the sick ranks. If you’re counting that is…
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telling it again and again
Over the past few weeks I’ve seen this idea pop up many times. The idea that it is in the retelling of a painful story that some of the pain can be eased. The idea that with more and more tellings of one’s darkest stories that the distance between the experience deepens and the hurt lessens. On our last visit, Sherry reminded me that when you can tell your story without crying, you’ve made progress. It’s so important to have friends and people with whom to tell your story. It’s why sometimes you find yourself telling your story to complete strangers – like a practice round or something. It’s why…
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happy anniversary.
Nineteen. If you’re talking about grains of rice or hairs on your head, that’s a little number. But I’m not talking about food or hair. I’m talking years. Years. And suddenly, nineteen is kind of a giant number. Nineteen. A number that sort of takes my breath away. Today marks nineteen years since I traded my last name for his wearing blue Chuck Taylors and my momma’s wedding dress. Nineteen years since I stood in a field by a stream on a farm in Virginia and said “I do”. It’s not a golden anniversary, I guess, but it’s a good solid stack of years we’ve piled up as Husband and…
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to wear compassion as a cloak.
My lovely friend sent this scripture passage to me recently. I have needed these words so frequently. 12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. – Colossians 3:12-14 Another friend pointed out how kind it is of God to allow us to put on traits like compassion and kindness and meekness and patience. Because He knows those characteristics are not natural to people like me. I need help to put on a…
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I will not define myself by my flaws.
Why do we define ourselves by the very thing we like least about ourselves? Victim. The shy one. Divorced. The girl with the scar on her left cheek. Like some dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps us low before anyone has a chance to push us back down. We do it with our homes. The house with the broken shutter. Right next to the dumpster. The one whose lawn is unruly and whose trees need to be trimmed. With ourselves. The bad haircut. The out of date clothes. The acne scars. Like we’re asking people to see what’s awful about us. I dare you to like me. I dare you to…
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truth
Truth. Something I am learning about truth is this. Truth is still truth even if the spokesperson of that truth has sometimes neither lived nor believed that truth. Because truth doesn’t require my consent. Truth doesn’t wait for me to act upon it to become truth. You know how I am learning this? By my husband and I being in the position of having to speak the truth we have not always lived to our eldest daughter. This raising a teenager business . . . this dance of guiding and supporting, letting go and holding back . . . it’s the hardest. Give me the dirtiest diaper you can throw…
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Farewell Old Friend
You know what I am through with? Pretense. Maybe it’s my age. (I did just officially get older last week.) But I don’t feel the need (nor the desire) to appear to be what I am not. If you ask me how I am – I will tell you. I won’t say “fine” when I am not. No, I don’t plan on giving you more than you asked for or disparaging people in my path to being “real”. But I don’t care to be pretend any longer. And I don’t want you to be that way either. You don’t have to share your deepest secrets with me when I ask…
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This Is A True Story
Sometimes I am convinced that my children are actually better people than me. Kinder than I am. More compassionate. Speedier in love and more perceptive. For example . . . It had been a long day. Long. And I was home trying to get the younger kids corralled after soccer practice. Riley was hanging out with friends. Kevin was working. I was trying to feed Wilder his last bottle before bed. Finn was dumping rubber stamps on the floor and spilling blue ink. Bergen was sitting on the red chest trying to remove his cleats. Mosely had already removed her cleats and wanted to put them away in the red…
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Sufficient
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:9-10) My friend recently e-mailed this verse to me. And when I read her e-mail, I was encouraged. But today, I feel more like a character in the Dr. Seuss book “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” because what do you do when it seems His grace…
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What It Isn’t
I love my husband. I really do. But with each year and each turn and each milestone of marriage God is teaching me brand new things about love. What it is. And what it isn’t. And I have so many more lessons to learn. A number of books and wise counsel have taught me along this path, leading me to where I am now. Books like Love & Respect and Sacred Marriage. But no book teaches me more than God’s word. It strips away popular theory and is more relevant than any book claiming itself as the most relevant marriage help book on the market. Today our pastor was referencing…
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Grace
I didn’t write this. I don’t know who did. I just found it. And typed it here. There are no longer good days and bad days. There are only days of grace. There will be days where you will be given the grace to endure what’s going on around you. And there will be days where you will be given the grace to enjoy what’s going on around you. But from here on out, there are only days of grace.
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Four Weeks
My Littlest Son, When I discovered that I was pregnant with you, I was . . . . surprised. Not entirely excited. Worried. In shock. I didn’t tell anyone for a long while. Your daddy and I really thought that your big sister Piper was the last little Keigley we would bring forth into this messy world. We were clearly wrong. And then I was so sick. The doctor and Daddy and I thought you wouldn’t survive. Oh, but small one, you are a survivor. And more than that, you decided to thrive. (God decided.) Let me be honest, my little Wilde Fox. Times at our house were not exactly…
