In every age, there have been many legitimate reasons to be afraid. Those who belong to Jesus also have reasons not to be.

In the midst of sticky fingers and parenting fails, it’s as if God sharing a very good, beautiful secret with me of a glory that only he knows in full.

We threw Noah the cutest little book launch party you ever did see, and it was a picture to me of God’s delight in his children.

Precious family memories can become an idol—or they can be the means by which we bear witness to God’s kingdom coming.

Eventually, we grown-up sorts stop looking for wardrobes that lead to snowy pine forests. But there is still a door to another world.

We cannot have a “life we don’t have to heal from.” But we can know that healing is possible.

Eight years in this old house have brought many dreams fulfilled and new dreams shaped by the kingdom.

God invites us into his joy through the things he has made.

Our acts of love are held by God.

The hilarious story of how my son lost his tooth during communion, and welcoming our children as the Church of today, not the Church of the future.

One of my favorite posts of the year! I reflect on seven years on our street and in this house, and on seasons of receiving as a sign of God’s coming Kingdom.

Once we are with Jesus and all this death and mourning have been met with God’s comfort, and heaven and earth have been joined finally and forever, we’ll have a lot of fun and have the joy of eternity-long, open-hearted, uncomplicated friendship. 

Nurture in me the things that will grow into eternity, that will have a home in the “city you will establish forever.”

Those of us who have set our hope fully on our King and his coming Kingdom are like February gardeners. We see the hard ground and hard hearts of Winter all around, yet we are also those who “rejoice, though we have considered all the facts.”

“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” 

I believe Jesus offers a better, deeper, fuller way to pay attention to what is happening in our world.

Imagination is not a triviality of childhood, afforded by immaturity and lives sheltered from the harsh realities of this world. On the contrary, imagination is essential to our life in Christ, giving us the eyes to see the things in this universe that are the Most Real, True, Good, and Beautiful.

What if we implored the Spirit to take these truths from merely something we recite from the creeds on a Sunday, or something for theologians to debate, and instead to empower us to consider with all seriousness how these truths transform our hearts by the Spirit to love the Lord and cause us to walk in the way of Jesus?

Worship of our glorious God and love for our neighbor would flow like a river from people of God.

Christ’s first and second comings enable a “third advent:” the many ways that we see Christ drawing near in the present, in the already-but-not-yet, ushering in his Kingdom and bringing light and life, often not in flashy ways, but rather coming to us, as Paula D’Arcy says, “disguised as our life.”

On this Thanksgiving week, there will likely be many messages meant to cheer you, saying “Yes, this year has been hard, but think of all you have to be thankful for!” Some of us will be able to receive that, but if those words just feel like a kick in the ribs in the middle of a hard season, take heart. In the midst of your sorrow, joy is not far from you.

My sister and I got together this morning to make my Grandma’s butterhorn rolls. I cannot accurately describe them—they can only be experienced.