I have to confess: I stole this idea from my sister. I’ll tell you what, she’s come a long, long way from the first grader who used to steal my pop barrettes, fake falling down the stairs so she could miss school, scratch up my Donny and Marie records while I was at kindergarten, and that one time she splashed nail polish all over my bed… Seriously, she’s a…
Keep Reading
faith
A Tree in a Garden, and a Baby with a Trashcan.
Susie has a walker now, and our house will never be the same. Specifically: the kitchen trashcan. OH, how she wants it. It started when I was cooking in the kitchen, she was bumping at my ankles in her little pink walker because wherever I am she wants to be RIGHTTHERETHISCLOSE, and I threw some scraps in. Her eyes were opened and she noticed for the first time, there in our…
Keep Reading
Conniving Women, Spineless Men, and God’s Kind of Sympathy.
Once upon a time a man named Abram was told by God himself that he’d be a big deal. Notorious. And God promised him offspring. Lots and lots of really important offspring. I mean, like, God was going to bless him big. The problem was, time ticked on by, because God doesn’t seem to be encumbered by the same clock we humans are, and Abram and his wife Sarai found themselves…
Keep Reading
Every Morning.
Every morning for the past two years, I’ve gotten up and driven thirty miles east to work. The past two weeks, though, I’ve been getting to work between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m. so I can get my eight hours in and get home early… because my kids are home for the summer, and I want as much time with them as possible. Which puts me driving in total darkness or…
Keep Reading
Easter Sunday Singing.
I cannot tell you in words exactly how powerful Church was on Sunday, but I wish I could. I’m always moved by the music… especially the old hymns I grew up singing… but this past Sunday was the most incredible church service I’ve been to in years. And it was all because of the music. It made me almost want to get Pentecostal, and you know I’m Baptist, and I just…
Keep Reading
Annie and Jesus: A Salvation Story.
She’s crazy. That’s all. My children are quite different, as if you didn’t know. My sweet first-born is the one I always refer to as my Missionary Child because… well, I can just see her traipsing off to some third-world country in Birkenstocks someday to feed orphans and widows. She’s just always been bent toward Doing the Right Thing. Not that Doing the Right Thing saves you, by any means….
Keep Reading
Clayton.
My cousin Clayton passed away three years ago yesterday. That’s him in the middle. While I never had the chance to really know this kid, I wish I had. He lived in California, a world away from East Texas, and I only had the chance to be around him once, at a family reunion a few years back. He was the life of the party even then. At not quite…
Keep Reading