life. faithful.

We had a wonderful time Friday, with our family over for bbq chicken and just a general get-together. That's one of the things I've most been looking forward to with our move to this new place. In the past, we've either been too far away or in too small a place to have everybody over, so it's a blessing to be able to invite our family out and actually have room for everybody. All weekend, though, something was off. I couldn't quite put my finger on it; I was spending time with my family, watching my kids play with baby cousins and baby ducks. We were laughing and chatting and making plans to build a big deck on the front of the house. We have been relaxing in the beauty of the Ozarks--wandering by the creek, looking at the hills, and seeing the lightning bugs. It wasn't until last night that I realized what it was--I was missing my brother. It crossed my mind for a fleeting moment Friday, while I was getting food ready for everybody. I was walking thr...

So, somehow it seems fitting that I got lost in the busy-ness of the day yesterday and missed posting about Bonnie Gray's new book, Whispers of Rest, on launch day. That definitely wasn't my intention; I was going to be on top of things and make sure I did just what needed to be done exactly when I needed to do it. Because, you see, that's how I want to present myself to the world. I want everybody to see that I have it all together, that I accomplish what I set out to do. I want to be seen as capable, dependable, and reliable. I want people to see the well-developed persona that I've put together, that one that can handle anything and everything that gets thrown my way. As much as I want people to see me that way, I also try to show God that same mask. I posted a while back about Bonnie's first book, Finding Spiritual Whitespace . If you haven't read it, it comes highly recommended. I read it quickly, devouring every page. I wrote in the margins, und...

We just bought a farm (which will lead to a lot of posts in the future, I'm sure...), and there's a little creek that runs through it. Actually, it's a couple of creeks that come together. Normally it's shallow, with water trickling over the rocks and moving gently down the creekbed. At one point, it ducks underground and flows there for a while before it comes back out of the rock right at the gate to our driveway. Lately, though, our beautiful little corner of the world has been pretty soggy. We got close to a foot of rain in just a few days. Water has been everywhere—the rivers have swollen out of their beds, filling fields and sweeping over bridges. We had water running through our yard, pouring down the hill, and overflowing our ponds. There were waterfalls falling where water hadn't even been flowing, rolling over rocks and around trees. We cross 5 different low water bridges before we reach our driveway, most of which aren'...