My dear friend, Katie, recently wrote a post on her blog about praying Psalm 131 during quarantine, and I’ve had this Psalm on my mind my since then. I love the thoughts that she shared and I encourage you to read it. “A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I...
Fanny Lou Hamer famously once said that she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” I’m thankful to Jemar Tisby (author of The Color of Compromise) for teaching me about her. At the age 42, after working as a sharecropper most of her life, Hamer became a civil rights activist and politician. She was fed up with the violence and injustice and oppression she saw and experienced in Mississippi and decided to do whatever she could, enduring...
My daughter asked this morning, “Why is it called Good Friday when such a bad thing happened on this day?” I grabbed a marker sketch of this image that I had scrawled out this morning and told her about how all of history converges on this very day, this very moment when Jesus gives up His life for the world, for us. I had been grappling a bit myself with how to celebrate Easter in the face of such...
I was first introduced to the concept of lament in the course of learning about racial justice and reconciliation over the last few years. I was reading Daniel Hill’s White Awake (which I highly recommend to white people). In one chapter, Hill writes about how lament is one of the necessary and appropriate responses to injustice and suffering. We, as white Americans, tend to want to focus on celebration and victory, or we want to jump immediately into fix-it...
Hello friends! I pray your are safe and well right now. I know most of our lives have changed drastically over the last few weeks. I am home with my family attempting some homeschool, trying to retain sanity and peace, and fighting anxiety. The other night, I wrote down some people I want to remember to pray for by name, and ended up creating a whole list of people. I thought I’d share the little chart I drew out...
I almost didn’t post this one because it felt a bit chaotic with four sets of hands and arms and chatter, but friends say to post it, so here goes! Like most of you, my kids are home with me for . . . how long? I spent the first week of this alternating between doomsday scenarios, panic, and mentally checking out in a deluge of news and Facebook posts. I’m still checking the news, but I’m trying to...
Friends, I’m a little freaked out if I’m being honest. The coronavirus has even reached our little town with a confirmed case yesterday. Universities are shut down and I have a hunch that our public schools are next. BUT GOD is reminding me that I know what to do with fear. My pastor sent out an email today filled with Scripture and I was reminded that God knows my fear and He speaks the language of peace. I remembered...
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24 ESV) This is the verse that’s been on my heart to share with you for this month’s screensaver and coloring page. At church, our pastors are working through a series on the Sermon on the Mount. This passage comes sandwiched between Jesus’...
This watercolor tutorial is all about playing with color! In the video below, my daughter and I walk you through ways you can play with the color purple. I think you’ll be surprised with the varying results. Here are some things you might want to have on hand before you start the video: jar of water (we reuse yogurt containers) paper towel for blotting watercolor paints. We use something like this* in the video (ours came from Michael’s). your favorite brushes...
