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The Days

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I found this butterfly on the sidewalk one day. It was lifeless perfection. I couldn’t help but wonder if it just fell out of the sky mid-flight when the end came.  It feels like that every time someone I know dies. The end comes abruptly and unexpectedly. It catches in my throat when I think about it. Sometimes there is no warning at all.  When Dale’s dad died, I kept thinking, “That’s it. He crossed the finish line without seeing it coming.” There was no time to get better at living. There was no grand finale. It was game over. I’ve always lived with this idea that someday I’ll feel like I’ve arrived on a plateau where I can say, “This is it! This is the place I’ve been working toward all these years.” I’m starting to believe that doesn’t exist here. God designed us to faithfully walk with Him, day by day, through mountains and valleys, good times and bad, always moving but never arriving.  With that knowledge, I want my regular, ordinary everydays to bring glory to the God of the Un
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For the Joy: Chapter 6

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  FOR THE JOY CHAPTER God Sees Me What is man that you remember him or the son of man that you care for him? Heb 2:6 Psalms 8:3 When I observe your heavens the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him as son of man that you look after him? These verse spark wonder in me. I stumble across them and read them again and again. I can’t get my head around this truth. God sees me. What is man that You remember him? Why do You care so deeply and richly for us when humanity is such a lost cause… We fail. We fail. We fail. We fail. When we return to You, You love us. You see us. You pursue us. You hold us, our lives, our tiny details, in Your perfect hands. You are mindful of us. Beautiful God, I am humbled and overwhelmed by Your boundless love. I lose things. A whisk. A can opener. A bag of dried cranberries. I hunt and cry and yell and blame the kids. I get so angry I feel like I might explode. Then I pray
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For the Joy: Chapter 5

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  FOR THE JOY CHAPTER 5 Anchor This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil. Heb. 6:19 In the fall of 2018, my daughter made the shocking announcement that she had enlisted in the Marines. She was over the moon. We were shellshocked. She had committed herself to this incredible path for her life, and I was happy for her. But the marines? I couldn’t imagine my girl fighting alongside a band of the roughest, toughest people she would ever encounter. When her lease ended, she and her dogs moved out of their apartment and back into our house. For the next few months, she worked full-time, exercised endlessly, and set her sights on shipping out to boot camp in the spring. I knew God’s plans would prevail, but I was more than a little nervous about sending my 20-year-old daughter across the country and releasing her to the drill sergeants. I tried to change her mind. Marines were trained like modern day Spartans.
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For the Joy: Chapter 4

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  FOR THE JOY CHAPTER 4 Hold Fast He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house… for every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God… but Christ was faithful as a son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Heb. 3:2 Merciful God… At this moment one of my people is wayward like the prodigal. The demand for freedom was beginning to cause a break in our relationship, so we gave it. Now this one is gone. In the big world. All. A. lone. Deep inside me there is a disturbance. My child, the one I was assigned to care for, has left the umbrella of my protection. The ache in my heart, the knot in my guts, the spontaneous tears all caught like a hook in the stream of a wayward heart. I could go and search. I could force the lost one to come home. I could monitor all coming and going. Take the phone and car keys… For what? The wayward path has been chosen. I wou
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For the Joy: Chapter 3

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  FOR THE JOY   CHAPTER 3 Suffering For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through SUFFERINGS. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren; Hebrews 2:10 A few years ago on Christmas day, after the morning’s excitement, we packed our bags and headed to Nana’s to continue the festivities. Before leaving town, we stopped at QT for gas and coffee. It was busier than I expected for Christmas day. Bopping cheerfully into QT with a from people from my entourage, I noticed a woman that I knew. I kind of knew her, we had mutual Facebook friends from church but had never met in person. She and her daughter were joyfully giggling by the coffee counter on Christmas day. I felt compelled to introduce myself. “Are you Stephanie?” I asked, cutting into her path to the register.
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Just in Case

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Let me introduce you to one of the most expressive little boys I’ve ever met. He’s my sweet nephew. If I tell him anything that I’m excited about, this is usually his immediate response. I adore him!! I have decided to publish my book here. It occurred to me that the email list of readers is growing, and in the event that I do pursue brick and mortar publishing, I would hope to produce this blog as a sort of copyright.  My intention is for the paper trail mostly. But, also, because I never know what God is going to do, and I'd like to leave all the doors open. It feels awkward and a little self-serving, but I hope you know me well enough to trust my motives.  In other news, we're awaiting the results of covid tests. Nearly everyone in our family has contracted a similar cold, and each case moderately resembles the sickness that several members of our extended family had just last week. We haven't been terribly ill, but we were vaccinated. The optimist in me says that it'
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For the Joy: Chapter 2

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FOR THE JOY CHAPTER 2 Beware of the drift For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard so that we will not drift away. Hebrews 2:1 The house I grew up in was five blocks from the community recreation building where there was an indoor pool. They didn’t charge membership fees like a standard YMCA, so you paid for each activity. The fee to swim was $.50 per person, which was cheap entertainment for us. My two older brothers and I were allowed to walk down the street to go swimming, as long as the boys kept an eye on me, and we were home before dark. I was a fearful kid and didn’t like to take risks, so I spent most of my time hanging out in the shallow end of the pool, jumping off the side and watching people dive off the diving board. Sometimes they dove right out of their suits, which was hysterical to me! Truth be told, that was the main reason I brought along my goggles. One particular day, I was feeling brave. Against my oldest brother’s comman
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