Every winter I hit that spot when it feels like winter will never leave. Here in Kansas we don't even have the beauty of glistening snow to brighten our days; except for rare snowfalls, the days are an endless succession of shades of brown. The trees are brown, the grass is brown, the street is …
Tag: hope
When Parents are Failing
What do you do when you think your friends are failing at parenting? Of course, it's easy to have all the answers about parenting before you've tried it out yourself. But suppose you have parented several children already, and what you see in other people makes you shake your head in despair? Let me tell …
The Lord is my Shade
I don't especially enjoy Kansas summers, when the temperature refuses to drop below 100 degrees and the land shrivels before my eyes. The hope of spring--vegetable plants birthing in moist earth, flowers growing dreamily along the sidewalk, trees pushing out their delicate green--is ruthlessly burned on the ash-heap of summer. Every year I feel the …
As a roaring lion
"I've been waking up feeling depressed," I admitted to my mentors. Shifting in my rocking chair, I set down my drink of raspberry mint tea and sighed. "During the day, the yucky feeling goes away and I'm able to function. But it's hard to get up in the mornings when I feel so awful." Being …
A life of its own
"Suffering doesn't need explanation. The experience of it calls for healing not reason because suffering splits you in two, creates a breach between you and your own existence. The rigid stance you take against your personal pain straining to erase your event, and not to include it in your present, makes you your own murderer. …
Christmas 2016
Merry Christmas from the Schmucker family! Here is a picture of us on a rainy evening in October, trying to shield ourselves with an umbrella. I don't know what the boys think is so funny. Who knows! Elijah is our 9-year-old. And Stuart is seven. (Our trampoline and rope swing have provided hours of enjoyment for our …
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
I'm not one who rigorously keeps up with the news, but the bit I know of current events is enough for me to feel the terror of a world in freefall. Senseless killings, blatant racism, moral wreckage, religious arrogance--the destruction never ends. As the creation crumbles into hopelessness; my own hopelessness wells from within. How can my …
When the Young Die
https://flic.kr/p/da62Wk We had in our yard a tree which lived through one season and then died, having no chance to spread its greenery upon the sky; (and its dying is both like and unlike the death of a child. She is an angel, they tell me, and happier now by far. Yes, oh yes, but--) …
Pondering Life
Life is fragile. I stroke the downy cheek of my newborn son, and press him close to my heart. Wonder suffuses me, for life is fragile. ... Life is brittle. I watch the black clumps of Kansas soil falling into my grandma's grave. Sadness consumes me, for life is brittle. ... Life is brief. I …
Two years ago
Two years ago, my brother-in-law Sheldon drowned. How does a person begin to describe that kind of loss? Sheldon was quirky (remember the donkey mask?), funny, energetic, good with kids, and underneath all the energy was a gentle, serving, dreaming heart. That last year, Sheldon was becoming one of Will's best friends. He was intensely loyal, …
arabah rejoice 