When Joseph disappeared inside the inn, Mary slid off the donkey. Because her legs trembled so, she leaned against the beast to keep from collapsing. Oh, how she ached from the journey! Had it only been three days? It seemed more like three months, three years even. Though the trip was arduous, it afforded her
By Jennifer Norstrom Silbert Exactly one year ago tonight, my brothers, their wives, and I were standing vigil over my dad’s hospice bed at my parents’ home in Wisconsin. We expected, but didn’t know for sure, that Dad wouldn’t make it through the night. His cancer had roared back into his life just three weeks
At the end of last year as I drove over the river and through the woods to visit my grown daughter, Brene Brown taught me how to live a whole-hearted life. Because my friend Karen Haring—founder and executive director of Libera, Inc.—recommended more than once that I listen to Brown’s 6-cd audio recording of her
She is dead to me. I tried to speak the words but instead I swallowed them, bitter as bile, moments after my mother delivered the news. “Sit,” she said when I entered the room for the midday meal. She pushed a cup—more wine than water—across the table. “Drink.” Parched from the morning’s work and wood dust,
Exceptional people live in every neighborhood, some of them miracles, some of them heroes. Jacob Allen and his parents, Jim and Karen, live near me in Morgantown. Jacob is the young man with autism, who at 18, was lost for four days in the Dolly Sods Wilderness of West Virginia back in October of 2007.
by Rachel Ellis “Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.” —George MacDonald I’ve always loved the mountains. Rugged strength, hues of monochromatic color towering deep into the skyline. There isn’t a thrill in the world like
Mrs. Burdette, the lady who had been old since I was a little girl, was a bit like a grandmother. We met her at our church where she “adopted” us. She had no grandchildren and only two grown children—a son who visited infrequently and a daughter with Downs Syndrome who lived in a group home.
Our middle child has had a busy year. Last May she graduated college. In the fall, she backpacked through Europe—sightseeing by day, couch-surfing by night. At the beginning of this year, she and a college friend flew to Peru to teach English for a few months at a small school in the mountain town of Huyancao.
“Hi, my name is Katie, and I am a crier. I’ve been a crier for a long time.” I cry about everything. Hallmark commercials (most commercials). Children’s books. While at the grocery store and on the sidelines of a parade. And while the majority of the world somehow has their act together enough to keep
When I gassed up in Summersville, West Virginia the cashier let me mix bold roast coffee with flavored cappuccino for no extra charge, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. I squinted at him. Look at me. Nothing. I dropped my dollar five on the counter. “Can I ask you a weird question?” He winced. “Weird?” “Have
