Everything we’ve deemed “opposite” and “mismatched” is coming together in a place just beyond our vision.

What adequate words are there to describe the love you have for a person who has loved you every moment of your whole life, before you were even aware? The only word I can come up with as my vision yet again blurs with tears is *grace*. It is all—every bit of it—grace.

In Christ, we have a Companion who has plumbed the depths of disappointment, who can say to our raw hearts, “My child, I know.” | Lent 2023

Tomorrow marks the start of the Christian New Year. But this new year comes in not with a bang, but with a groan. Not with goal setting and a good decluttering, but with deep longing.

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. 

The words of Jesus cut through our native tongue of fear, offering us a new language of hope, not outside of, but right in the midst of our fears.

Behind our home, there is a dirt-paved, trash can-lined alleyway with power and telephone lines arching overhead. And in that dusty, tumbledown alleyway, there is an unexpected gift—a row of the brightest flowers, growing tall and wild, along a neighbor’s chain link fence.