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the hands and the feet
In the middle of The Falling Down, in the long days of Sad, I am completely overwhelmingly humbled by the absolute care of an assembly of humans who are saying to our family “We love you. You matter. You are not forgotten.” Most days it feels like Too Much To Accept although it has been my only choice and my saving breath. Even as a Word Girl I have not enough grasp on this finite human vocabulary to do this level of kindness justice. Each day the Word of God is visibly made flesh in the most generous and extraordinarily mundane manners. Encouraging texts that arrive magically and mysteriously at…
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the time being
It’s like learning a new language. One that sticks to the roof of my mouth and feels like sandpaper to the tongue.
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a glimmer …
Sometimes hope looks like ….. a sparkling clean Suburban an hour spent playing soccer with friends an unexpected letter in the mail a kind text the lyrics to a song morning cuddles with the softest downy headed fellow generous children doing their chores without complaints friends serving up waffles and pancakes for breakfast for my children a familiar passage of scripture sunshine and blue skies
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this …..
And I need to write words. They are a comfort. A source of sustenance in a lean season. The silence is frightening. The noise is overwhelming. And there is no place I feel okay. There is no Okay. Walking through this darkness Pinpricks of light and hands stretched out groping and stumbling and gasping. This is my night. And my day. Where I sleep and where I wake. My drowning and my living.
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yes.
Help me, Father, today to let go of my need to always understand. Enable me to live in rest when I don’t know before what will happen. Help me to have a restful heart when opposition is great, and all I have is You. -Paul Tripp
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talk is cheap
The blog posting has been hit or miss for a week or two now. Mostly miss. Part of my silence of late is due to my lack of anything good to say. My momma literally did tell me, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” (My goodness – the stack of instances in my life when heeding that advice would have served me well is ever heaping.) I don’t have a lot of good things to say lately. Nothing I feel like writing. Scratch that. Nothing I feel like sharing. No. Not that either. Nothing I think would be wise to share. Plenty to write. Nothing…
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and here we go together ….
You guys. What sweet and lovely and painful and true and empathetic responses I received to yesterday’s post. They were all such kind reminders of why I even started this blog in the first place. Of why I read good literature. Of why stories are ever even written. That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not alone and isolated from anyone. You belong. – F. Scott Fitzgerald We are all fellow pilgrims and we really do need one another. Kevin’s favorite band (The Decemberists — in case you’ve forgotten the concert or the novel) has a new album…
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Christmas In The Raw.
Does it feel like Christmas to you yet? And what in the world does feeling like Christmas even mean? Does it mean snow or presents wrapped and ready or baking in the kitchen? I don’t know. Here’s what I know – I’m in a bit of a holiday slump. For years I watched my father kind of ebb and flow during the holidays. He was never the primary shopper or planner of gifts – but that seemed pretty normal to me. He isn’t a Christmas-carol-singing kind of man. On a dairy farm days ran to a consistent routine and cows had to be milked Christmas Eve and Christmas morning…
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Ye Olde Christmas Chain. Again.
I am often guilty of working too hard in creating moments when the best moments are usually spontaneous. I am frequently guilty of contriving glorious traditions when my family is pleased with simple favorites. This is revealed to me every year when I think about our basic Paper Chain. The one made of strips of red and green construction paper. The typical little decoration that my children cherish. We were ready December 1 and we’ve been guns blazing ever since. (Well. No guns blazing. I’m probably not a person qualified to even use that phrase. I have, however, watched the movies Tombstone and Young Guns a plethora of times, so maybe…
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Don’t Homeschool at Home Only
You know what’s cool about homeschool? (Eating breakfast at 10 a.m. Not packing lunches. Reading a funny novel out loud together with your kids. Watching your daughter develop good writing habits. Wearing your pajamas to math class. Allowing your fourth grader to have the opportunity to give art lessons to his younger siblings.) Wait. That wasn’t where this post was supposed to go. I’m going to start again. You know what’s great about homeschool? You don’t have to always do school at home! The staff here at Wildwood loves irony like that. Sure, we are home probably more than we are not. But it’s fun to take school on the…
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Road Trippin’: Tricks of the Trade
We’ve spent a LOT of hours in the car on the road with manymanymany small children. I don’t think we are experts in many things – but we might qualify as experts on sitting in the car with our kids. We’ve had lots of short trips, of course – trips to The Farm and the beach and whatnot. (And by short I mean less than six hours.) But we’ve also logged in miles and miles and hours and hours on loads of long trips as well. I mean – my parents and two of my brothers lived in Wyoming. That’s a painfully long way away no matter…
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The Book on the Bed Christmas Tradition
I don’t think there’s a Keigley gene for Early Rising. Sure, as very newborn humans the kids woke up early – but 3 a.m. isn’t actually early. It’s more like – late. Or middle of the night. My dad was an extremely early riser. Despite his hopes and his best efforts, the habit has never actually rubbed off on me. And not on my children either. I have friends whose non-baby children routinely awake at o’dark thirty, full of energy and go-get-em. I pity those parents. (Just kidding. They all seem happy about sunrises. Good for them.) The kids in my house are mostly late sleepers and quiet awakers. Hooray for…
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And The Middle Shall Be First
Twas the month of December and the tree was chopped down. No one can find the nativity scene but the tree stand magically reappeared after a two year hiatus. Christmas music blared and we all scrambled through the tissue paper and completely untidy array of ornaments treasured and tarnished and piled high in a less than glamorous Rubbermaid bin. We name every tree we get. I can’t pretend to recall the names of all of those trees but I do remember the first tree I ever decorated the first year I ever spent the holiday as a wife. Herbert. Herbert was a ratty old scrub cedar plucked from his life on a hillside…
