cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
As I awoke from surgery, I was keenly aware that I did not have the dreamy, light, euphoric feeling I had coming out of anesthesia ten years earlier. This was different. It felt more like a backhoe had gutted a hole in my core—gut and bowels included. Any movement at all would shift what felt…
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I will never forget the based-on-a-true-story movie, The Impossible, about a family who, while vacationing in a paradise resort in Thailand, was hit by the 2004 tsunami. The scene that grips me most is when Naomi Watts is reading on a lounge chair and suddenly sensing something is not right. That something terribly powerful is…
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The sign above the door said it all: Lake Rules: Relax, Relax, Relax. I had intentionally pulled away for a couple days of solitude. The use of the home, situated on a lake, was an unbelievable gift from friends, one that undid me as I walked in, taking in the beauty and stillness around me.…
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It was 2008 when Katy Perry launched her hit song, “I Kissed a Girl [and I liked it].” I worked in a conservative ministry at the time and watched as “church-people” gasped and shook their heads as if the world had reached a new depth of wickedness.
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I am walking down a long dusty road, stretched already for miles. I’ve come a long way and I am weary. Both my heels have bloodied blisters and my lips are cracked and parched. As I walk, I’m caught by the sound of a faint crowd cheering in the distance.
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Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life -Proverbs 13:12 It seemed harmless to open the invitation until I read the job description. It could have had my name engraved on it.
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To this day, I have no idea what we were arguing about but, in a moment, I was stripped down and exposed.
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“… and I can already tell I will adore you too.” Her words in an email caught me off guard since I had only met her once through a mutual friend, though nothing about her struck me as anything but sincere.
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I was in fourth grade when I first experienced the beauty of community.
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The date had been on the calendar for months. My oldest nephew and his soon-to-be-bride were celebrating with an engagement party at my sister’s house.
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