I love throw pillows. They’re unequivocally my favorite decor item. I like to change them out with the holidays and seasons to make my home feel more festive and cozy. I love building myself a pillow nest to snuggle up and watch movies. I’m pretty frugal, so I consider throw pillows an investment, and I…
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11 NIV) On a normal Thursday evening a couple of weeks ago, my daughter and I arrived at her piano teacher’s house…
Farming is unpredictable. Four years on our farm in East Tennessee, and that is probably the major lesson I have come away with. Rain is good. Too much rain is bad. Sun is good. Too much sun is bad. Predators are needed to keep the ecosystem in check. Unless they come after the animals you…
Self-interest is restrained within due bounds when love supervenes; for then it rejects evil things altogether, prefers better things to those merely good, and cares for the good only on account of the better. ~St. Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God I read this quote one morning during my devotion time, then turned to where…
At a prayer chapel on top of a hillside in Redding, California, I sat on the grass overlooking the city just one year after a raging fire swept through, destroying everything in its path. The Carr Fire jumped the Sacramento River, blew through three counties, and took more than a month to contain. Over a…
On a cold, late December night over a decade ago, I walked behind the thrifted couch in the living room of my first home and began to tug at a corner of the bedraggled carpet. With much effort and accompanying dust, that initial corner broke free of the tack strip. That first pull became a…