Your house is only as big as your hospitality

Thumbnail image for Your house is only as big as your hospitality December 19, 2011

I am a reluctant renter.
Have been for years.
Our house is small, it has faux bricks that constantly fall off the kitchen walls and carpets that, well, let’s just say we have three kids under the age of six and leave the rest up to your imagination.
For years my small house has stunted my hospitality.
Maybe [...]

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A transcontinental wedding wish for my brother & new sister-in-law

Thumbnail image for A transcontinental wedding wish for my brother & new sister-in-law November 28, 2011

{My oldest little brother got married this weekend. In South Africa. I wasn’t there. But I was. Because words have wings and love can span oceans.}
Joshua, I don’t know if you’ve ever been my little brother.

You’ve always been the rock, the hug, the guy that knows how to comfort his sister when her mom died, [...]

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Five Minute Friday: Grow

Thumbnail image for Five Minute Friday: Grow November 18, 2011

On Fridays around these parts we stop, drop, and write.
For fun, for love of the sound of words, for play, for delight, for joy and celebration at the art of communication.
For only five short, bold, beautiful minutes. Unscripted and unedited. We just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.
Won’t you join us?
1. [...]

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For when you want to catch a moment

Thumbnail image for For when you want to catch a moment September 19, 2011

So my dad’s text messages wend their way to me from the Southern Hemisphere and I plaster them – band aid like – across my heart. It’s been two months since we were with them and already the photos we’ve printed and plastered across the boys’ bedroom walls are wrinkled from all the telling and [...]

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What women {in real life} can do for your soul

Thumbnail image for What women {in real life} can do for your soul September 12, 2011

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
~Horatio G. Spafford

My mom chose that hymn for her funeral. It was her prayer for those of us left behind. And as her just-turned-eighteen-year-old only daughter I [...]

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One way to quiet the nagging voice of mother guilt

Thumbnail image for One way to quiet the nagging voice of mother guilt August 25, 2011

Sometimes the specter of mother guilt chases so hard after us it’s hard to hear anything else. It’s always there nipping at our heels, whispering in our ears, weaseling into our heads. Right when we think the day’s gone well, it slips into bed next to us and reminds us of all we could have [...]

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The surprising place that ugly sometimes comes from

Thumbnail image for The surprising place that ugly sometimes comes from August 10, 2011

We’re talking about beauty this week.
And as I sit and watch my oldest-about-to-turn-six-year-old son at Tae Kwon Do all lean and long, lithe graceful limbs – this strong, man of a boy – an image of him as a newborn superimposes itself on the Jackson I see before me.
Suddenly I’m back in a thatch roof [...]

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The one where I’m delayed in Chicago (again)

August 2, 2011

I sit here in my tired high heels that I trade in for flip flops at a boarding gate waiting on the flight that’s been delayed. It’s been a grand two days of dreaming big and beautiful visions for (in)courage with the DaySpring team and my heart is full of the wonder of being useful.
Two [...]

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Why you should be kind to the mom on your flight

Thumbnail image for Why you should be kind to the mom on your flight August 1, 2011

When I board the plane and see her and the toddler in my row the first thing I think is, “Thank goodness I wasn’t rude or irritable when I saw them earlier in the restroom.” Because we will be close companions now for the next hour and a half.
She’s juggling all those adorable baby rolls [...]

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Just the best advice I ever got about love

Thumbnail image for Just the best advice I ever got about love July 26, 2011

We spent almost all of our first year together apart. This South African girl was stateside at college and her Midwest all-American guy was in Europe learning the ways of books older than either of us and cultures more ancient than the books.
I made a strange discovery in the midst of my missing him.
What I [...]

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