Tag: life
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Shelter in Place
An overheard conference call: Wake up at the same time you always did on a normal work day, take a shower like normal, get dressed like normal, keep the same hours you normally did, invest in your space at home. This could be our new normal for a very long time. I can’t help but…
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You Don’t Know the Whole Story
Once, I thought I knew it all. I thought my story was sadder than anyone else’s story. I thought my family had endured more than anyone else’s, but that was just our little secret to carry around. Psh, if only you knew. And by “once” I mean a million times. This is an easy habit…
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When Life Goes Off-Roading
A baby lost. Singleness prolonged. Families incomplete. I always feel different, changed in some deep way when I hear stories like these about faithful people who have plowed through serious heartbreak. No one expects to lose a newborn baby, one you’ve carried around for nine months, rubbing your belly while whispering prayers of forever. No…
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For When You’re Still Waiting
I want what I want, when I want it, NOW. No, yesterday. As my grandma always sang to me as a child, “There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad she was…
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Who Are You When No One Is Watching?
I am not the first person (really, Christian) to confess this, but here it goes: I have been known to slip out a cuss word here and there. Or several, as is suitable for the circumstances.
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The High Highs, The Low Lows, and Everything In Between
In my family, we like to do it up big. We’re busy trying to go to the moon, but we’re also contracting rare diseases that puzzle medical professionals. When I draw a timeline of my life, these high highs and low lows, these peaks and pits, they happen at exactly the same time. Some say…
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What I Know About the Love of a Brother
My mom warned me it would happen: she said, again and again, one day you will wake up and he will be bigger than you. So this day she said would come, this growth spurt of my little brother, well, I don’t need to tell you this. But I will. It happened.
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Close-Ups: Grocery List
I lost my grocery list. Crumpled, half-folded, itemized secrets to eating and living. Blueberries Kale Flowers I forget. Omega-3s for joints, anti-inflammatory, immune-system-building ingredients. Back then, my elbows leaned on the cart as I crossed off essentials. But seasons change, it’s gone, or it will resurface when the ice melts. Tonight: frozen pizza.
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Close-Ups: Roasting a Chicken
He chopped vegetables and slid thyme off stems, while I rubbed oil and shoved lemon into darkness. Six hours slow cooking and seven minutes kissing the broiler later, he dug the dull knife into the loose joints of our browned bird. Nauseated, I walked my ears away. (Sorry, Julia Child.)
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Every Day Is for Hard Work
“I want you to know that the invitation to offer your life as a living sacrifice is probably not going to feel very glamorous or heroic. It’s going to show up in the way that you love your spouse when it’s difficult. The way that you care for your children even on the long days.…
Ashley Fenker 