amelia’s (and robbie’s) ice bucket challenge

so by now you’ve heard of the als ice bucket challenge, which raises awareness, support and money for people who have lou gehrig’s disease. also now there’s the “rice bucket” challenge, where you dump a bucket of rice over your head and it supports feeding the hungry in the phillippines (which is pretty cool). i…

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dream job

dear God, can my spiritual gift be butter? i’m sort of joking, but i’m also sort of serious. when it comes to expressing care and affection, i’m not always good with words. this is why i have a love-hate relationship with greeting cards. but i am pretty good at cooking and baking. a hug and…

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write about love

i know a way (so you know the way) get on your skinny knees and pray (maybe not today) you’ve got to see the dream through the windows and the trees of your living room — belle and sebastian, write about love i periodically realize i have a long way to go in loving people.…

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“warmly adored”

“my trip had been a cry for God’s attention. i had wanted Him to notice me and then to love me for my grandiose and sacrificial endeavors. i had deemed my radical itinerary prerequisite for divine favor. “no such odyssey was required. “that journey has already been completed by Jesus, and on our behalf. His…

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learning to say ‘i love you’

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is…

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around the world

  at about this time last year, i was angrily dealing with the reality that i couldn’t go to germany on my church’s two-week trip because i had to have brain surgery. brain surgery, of all time-consuming, vacation day-sucking things! then it turned out no one went, after all, because there weren’t enough people who…

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a simple life

one of my favorite things to do in the morning, when the house is still, is to sit at the kitchen table and look out the windows at the way the early light hits our neighbour’s meadow-like expanse of lawn. it is so peaceful then, with the coffee pot’s burbling and birdsong the only sounds,…

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now what’s normal in my life …

from the bookshelves: old possum’s book of practical cats by t.s. eliot with illustrations by edward gorey the coworkers and i were talking today about how we spent our respective Easter holidays.  one of them put in his time watching children try to launch hard-boiled eggs from a special egg shooter spring machine-thing one of…

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