The Way Home

What Can Go Right

Sometimes traffic—the maddeningly unpredictable flow of that greatest annoyance, other cars–can tell important stories. I like to think I’m in control of a great many details regarding my life. Of course I know, in a proper Christ-following way, that God is in control, but lately it’s Seattle traffic that reminds me that sometimes I’m quite…

Ideal World Problems

My phone knows I’m pregnant. Like many moms my age, along with the time-consuming social media and practical tools, my cell phone is currently host to a handful of pregnancy-related apps. My hospital has its own app reminding me about upcoming appointments, and in a moment of uncertainty earlier this week I downloaded a contraction…

American Girls

I’m just going to say that “nesting” made me do it. Nesting, that biological imperative. That habit we share with creatures who spend their last days of gestation preparing a home for their coming little ones. That urge to go to Target just to look at small clothes and different shapes of pacifiers. That millionth…

Mini Pumpkins and Not-Forever Houses

It was a great day when I discovered that Trader Joe’s sells small pumpkins for 69 cents. America and Germany are tied in their veneration of pumpkins. In Germany, I could go to the market and find five kinds of pumpkins suitable for making various types of soup. That’s pretty much what you do with…

The First Day of No School

Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there, To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance….

September: News, Thanks, and Prayers

News and Dates: September 4: First day of school for Timmy at Seattle Christian School We’re Thankful For: New Beginnings, with two new jobs for Timmy (with the Air Force Reserve and at Seattle Christian School), a new house, a new neighborhood and new friendships. Old Friends, who have shown us remarkable hospitality, welcoming us to the…

Broken Bowl, Beautiful Bread

I knew what had happened before I saw it. The familiar crash, gravity precipitating a collision between ceramic tile and ceramic dish, and then a groan of disappointment from the dropper. Usually, to be honest, it’s me dropping stuff, but this time it was my daughter, a toddler who remarkably has broken only one mug in…

Calling, Passion and Tally Ho

We turn off the road toward the workshop, hearing only the faint clink of hammer on wood from across the field. Past a high fence advertising a “dangerous work site,” we pick our way through a forest of felled and sliced oak to where the ribcage of a boat perches under a roof without walls….

August: News, Thanks, and Prayers

News and Dates: August 9: Hosting Seattle Christian School Student Council for a backyard barbecue August 1-19: Timmy completing Air Force Reserve days at Joint Base Lewis-McCord August 20: Timmy starts work at Seattle Christian School! For those who didn’t read the last post, we have a house! We’re renting in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle, and…

Everything Beautiful

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3:11 After the ceremony, we drift under the pavilion, searching for cold drinks and shade. I suspect this day isn’t terribly hot by midwestern standards, but I’ve been quite literally chilling in the mountains of Washington State for the ten days since our return to Germany, so…