Children know how to ask for things. Children know how to create things. Children know how to invite themselves (and everyone else) to everything. Children know how to wonder and tell over-the-top-stories and how to slow life down.  It would do us some good to take notes from these little teachers.

Nature has a way of silencing me with her beauty, of giving me perspective. With her leaves brighter than my dim heart and her trees bigger than all my fears, I get a fresh look at my small problems.

Pain is a teacher, if we let her in. And like all good teachers, we find that we hunt them down, many years later, and say: Thank you. You pushed, you prodded, you poked...and now look at me. Because of you, I am who I am.

It seems a table, a bar, the floor will do. So will an egg, tea, leftover cake. The point isn’t the content of the offering, the point is the content of the heart.

And aren’t we grateful? For the other ones who know our insecurities, our tears, our laughter, our grit and fight, our wins and losses. And still, yes STILL, they love us.

I have embraced the gift and curse of ADHD—especially as a mom. One of the biggest light-bulb moments was hearing that just about the time many boys are "growing out" of ADHD in their 20's and early 30's, women are "growing into" ADHD.

Who doesn't want a lighter load in life? Maybe it's just me. But I'm willing to bet these three ingredients will sweeten your day, and shed some burdens.

I've noticed an easy recipe here or there weaves its way into some fantastic books. A quick, delicious dinner from an author-turned-foodie for a few pages. A recipe where everyone wins.

After several years, I finally considered antidepressants (in tandem with my diet, exercise, counseling, etc). And my next thought was: But, Jesus. 

Has anyone reached out to you? Or when you have reached out, who has responded? Who has hugged you? Listened? Invited you somewhere? Given wise counsel? Showed up? Loved you with no strings attached? This is God. He is here.

Jesus spent His life on the bottom rung of the ladder. He surrounded himself with the powerless, the outcasts, the bottom dwellers, the marginalized. By his own choosing, He never made it up past that bottom rung. But I was born on the top rung; I was born into a life so far from Jesus. White. American. Middle class. Educated. Excess everything. It is a life so many long for, but it is a life that has proven to be my greatest hindrance in knowing the true Jesus.

Privilege by its very nature is passive.  It demands absolutely nothing of its possessor. It teaches its possessor to protect it at all cost.