Tomorrow morning at the college where I teach, the annual graduation ceremony will be held. Dozens of my colleagues—the LOML included—will don their fancy robes and parade down the aisles of the grand old auditorium. Several hundred graduates—all bedecked in caps and gowns—will file in behind them while the organ belts Pomp and Circumstance. The… Read More Dear Graduates
OR “Sometimes the Adoption Process Can Feel Like This” “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed” (2 Corinthians 4:8). I grew up watching the Road Runner cartoons—the two-minute mini-episodes, in which the big-nosed, big-eared Wile E. Coyote obtains ridiculous gadgets from the mail-order company, the Acme Corporation. He uses these devices to… Read More When We Want
My mom’s last Mother’s Day was in 2008. But I think I miss her more this year than ever before. In part, because I have been writing about her for these past many months. Her presence felt so powerfully as I paint her on each page. In part, too, because each year I spend as… Read More One More Mother’s Day
Just a couple of months after our first miscarriage, we had a second. And just a couple of weeks after that, in June of 2005, we had a call. Since my epiphany and the release of so much anger, my main method for dealing with grief was to throw myself into the renovation of our… Read More Moving in Mom and Dad
”Adam and his wife were both Naked, and they felt no Shame” (Genesis 2:25). I’ve been called “vulnerable” more than a few times since I launched this blog last July. It just happened again last night. And actually, it’s a label I’m happy—and humbled—to own. Or, at least, aspire to. If I’m going to share… Read More Just Call Me “Vulnerable”
“Greenleaf’s Bull” by Jeffery Dale Starr. I call it my Epiphany. That early morning in April 2005 when I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. And the scales fell off. And I could see. We had only been in This Old McHenry House for one week when I discovered that I was pregnant for the… Read More (Pregnancy. Miscarriage.) Epiphany.
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.” Philippians 3:12 Good Friday at This Odd House started out “pretty good.” The kids were home from school, and the… Read More Not-So-Good Friday
How does the word “Hope” fit on you? Does it roll off your tongue with a smile and a sigh? Does it wrap around your shoulders like a fuzzy afghan? Or does it catch in your throat? Does it feel prickly and irritating? Even downright painful? A knife in the back? The character “Red” (Morgan… Read More When We Need to Find Hope
Last week I attended the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For three intense days, I basked in the wisdom and wit of writers/speakers such as Bret Lott, James McBride, Anne Lamott, Richard Foster, and Rachel Held Evans. I scribbled pages of notes on subjects like Writing as Lament,… Read More What I Took Away & What Is to Come
“Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its… Read More And the Walls Came Tumbling Down