As the sun settled below tonight’s horizon, I sat for a few minutes in the fresh, cold air on a screened-in porch overlooking a giant lake, absorbing its stillness, and its utter quiet.   Today is the 11-month anniversary of the day my mom left this earth. It’s hard to believe that much time has passed because the event of her death still feels recent and shocking.   But I can tell that time has passed, and that time—these past 11 months—have yielded new thoughts, feelings and experiences as I’ve traveled through grief with the Lord.   I’ve found that in my time of deepest and lonely...

Another year has passed, a year painful to remember yet impossible to forget. A year when last my mother breathed, when last I embraced her, heard her voice, saw her face. The last year any of those things would ever take place in my life.   The new year dawned with her birthday. She would have been 60. Every new year will make it impossible to forget, as if I could, as if I wanted to. I will never forget the life with which my own was so connected.   We don’t forget what we’ve gone through, the pastor said on Sunday. Remember God’s goodness and faithfulness, what He taught you in difficult...

Faithful, ever. In changing times, unchanging.   In sorrowful times, revealing grace upon grace upon grace, lovingkindness that endures forever, changeless.   In lonely times, manifesting love, deep, great, unwavering, true.   In restless times, inviting rest providing hope for new things, making ways, directing steps ordering days, proving Your Word deep, great, faithful, true unwavering.   In needy times, in weakened times, a very present Help and helping a strong arm fortifying and strengthening.   In all times—Potentate— in time itself—Creator.   All this You are You...

Emmanuel.   It’s a beautiful word, if you truly know what it means. And I don’t just mean the interpretation, God with us.   Much can be said about God with us. The fact that God came to earth in human form and His name was called Jesus. The fact that His motivation for coming was love, love for you. Love for me. The fact that without His coming, all people of the world would perish eternally. Both you and me.   It’s all beautiful. And sometimes very hard to believe that it’s true. But it is. And that is, perhaps, the most amazing part about Emmanuel that I’m meditating on this...

Today we Tennesseans are getting a taste of real winter. Snow is whispering its descent to earth, gently piling over the dry grass.   The last time I experienced such a wintry day was in February, the week my mother died. Days earlier she had written to me that the freshly fallen snow was so pretty. More lovely snow fell a few days after she died. And now, it’s falling again. It is still pretty. In Decembers past, I would feel old tugs of nostalgia’s magic as I looked past my Christmas tree at the window to watch it fall. Though I do not wish to dwell on the happy memories of the unrecoverable...

As I took a walk on Thanksgiving morning before the family came over for a holiday breakfast, it suddenly occurred to me that we had no centerpiece for the table.     I couldn’t help but think about last Thanksgiving; Mom was with us. We cooked dinner together. Canadian geese bellowed outside; the stereo sang inside. The table was set and we had our choice of floral arrangements to use as the centerpiece. Several people had sent them to us, expressing their care as we prayed that Mom would be healed.   As I walked past dried weeds and berry-laden bushes, I thought that perhaps I could...