You know the rest. Never a bride.     This weekend I “starred” as a bridesmaid for the fifth time. This wedding happened to be my sister’s, so it was extra special.   I enjoy being a bridesmaid. It’s an honor to stand up with someone on her day to be queen. It’s fun to wear the fancy dress, get your hair done and carry flowers. I’m all about it.   But deep within I’d like to have my turn as the bride.   Thank God, I did not grow up believing in superstition, that silly things like the number of times one is a bridesmaid prevents one from becoming a bride.   Yet, these...

Wait.   Like the night for dawn, through the long hours. Resting from day and its work. Replenishing strength in the Lord. If you let the darkness do its work of patience, if you put the trial to the test in God’s presence, if you wait on Him, your wings will grow. You won’t see them, at first. You will clamor for the definition of hope. You will stumble in ways that feel long and wide across the intended path. But when you get up you will find, you will find this: grace has hemmed you in. Its river is longer, its flow is wider. Its source is God’s love, flowing unhindered from Christ’s cross....

I pick up my week’s worth of veggies from the barn and begin to drive my car slowly down the farm’s stony driveway.     I don’t see them as I approach. But before I get close enough, they rise—a flock of pretty little birds, flying gracefully together, with bits of light and song upon their wings, against a summer-blue sky.   This picture lingers in my mind for the following week. I am realizing that I need to trust God on a deeper level than I do. I am contemplating grace and how little I truly understand it. I see how much I keep  my nose at the grindstone, always trying to be...

Tonight, all is silent except for the swelling swishes of trees in a quickly approaching storm. Thunder begins to catch up with the lightning. Soon, there will be rain in the darkness.       My house is cloaked with night. I read, in the gold chair, under the light of one bulb, Darkness and light are alike to You.   I can see nothing outside the windows, in the dark, until the lightning blinks on again. Yet, He sees everything outside, everything inside. He sees down to the places in my heart that not even I can see.   I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and...

I lean forward, Lord.       I wait eagerly for sunrise, for You— to see the face of Truth rising in love over my cloudy horizon.   I wait in stillness like the grass, at peace with the dew, with the shades of darkness that will not remain in daylight, at rest beside the mountains of mystery I cannot understand.   I wait in fullness, my heart open like the blooms of summer zinnias, holding nothing back.   I wait in reverence with the trees, with nothing to boast of except for the One who made me as I am, in His image.   I lean forward to see You, to know You, and to...