bsmiles and sunny days

I was in an English class in high school studying handwriting analysis when I learned something really insightful about myself. I'm not a finisher. When I write my name without a real concerted effort, I start with big, strong letters, scrawl out the middle and end with a swoosh rather than anything legible. If you tried to interpret it, you might guess my name is Rebew Sutt. This is very telling. I am a visionary. I start strong, work diligently for about 80% of the project, and then finish with a scribble or a line or a pile of supplies and tools in the garage, leaving the last 20% undone indefinitely. That's why it felt like such a big deal to me when I placed the last piece in this puzzle. Early in the spring, Dale registered us for the ETS Annual Meeting in Rhode Island. He booked airfare, rented a car, and reserved our room. I was over the moon in anticipation of it. I love that part of the country and couldn't wait to go back. By the end of the summer, the conference

I  have always wrestled with self-righteousness, the thorn in a good Christian’s heart. I try to do the right thing, and live in a way that represents Jesus well, but there has always been sin lurking in the secret places of my life. Instead of acknowledging it, I dismiss it as weakness or human frailty, in an effort to keep on living a good Christian life. Sadly, the church also has a way of not addressing sin for what it is, rather, we put on a good Christian appearance without confessing sins and bringing darkness to light. We are very good at addressing other people’s sin, but hiding our own has become a way of life.  As I have gotten older, I’ve become almost desperate to get honest with myself, admitting to issues in my heart that I’ve shut down and locked up. God is revealing these things to me, to bring them to the light for healing and redemption. These words hit me hard.  “All things in heaven, earth, around, within, without, condemn me- the sun which sees my misdeeds, the cr

I wish I had a great story to tell you about how amazing these past few weeks have been and how I’ve overcome my anxiety in leaps and bounds, but as much as I hate to say it, the darkness has nearly overtaken me.  I’ve been asking God for relief from it around the clock. At times I feel like my heart will pound out of my chest and my oxygen levels must be barely life-sustaining because I notice myself gasping for air in random settings, but when I check my pulse, it’s normal. I don’t understand it. It’s haunting. It helps to do normal things. I continue to make a list of six things I want to accomplish every morning when I get out of bed. It gives me a place to begin and an end. Today we made apple turkeys. It’s an age-old tradition in my family. It was a major accomplishment to get it done before Thanksgiving Day.    We live in a mad, mad world, and the tensions therein pull us in all directions. However, we are not those belonging to the wild, ranting and writhing in darkness. We are

 I feel like the long dark winter has already settled. I've been watching the news reels like a hawk, hedging my bets against the odds. Hoping for some kind of validation in my hunches. Trolling one news sight after the next for some new insight into our nation's future.  And then I stopped. This morning I shut off the alarm on my phone at 7am and left it on my bedside table. My impulses fired over and over to go and check "just one thing," but I let them starve and did a puzzle instead. I took the kids to the park. We ate McDonald's cheeseburgers and then took a nap. When Dale got home at the end of the day, I felt a quiet in my soul that I haven't felt in a long, long time.  I have written about this addiction to my phone and the news and social media, as an attempt to give myself some accountability. It's so easy to talk about how addictive it is, and how it corrupts your peace, and how it shifts your thinking from what is good and true, to conspiracy a