For the Ones Who Make Us Smile as the Plane Goes Down
To this day, I’m not sure how close that plane was to crashing. Suffice to say, I certainly believed we weren’t going to make it … but an unsung hero helped me to stay calm. I’m no stranger to flying; in the past 6 weeks alone, I’ve boarded 11 flights for speaking engagements. Ordinary turbulence is no big deal. Yet I’ve never experienced anything like what happened on that flight. I was 15, flying home from Italy with my parents, brother, and best friends. We’d traveled abroad for a church gathering, and after a week of eating gelato and saying...
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Fill Somebody’s Cup: An Unconventional Birthday Wish
Home renovation projects: they can wear on you. Viva la tiny bathroom! You stumble over construction supplies, and everything is forever out of place. The cat dips her paws in the polyurethane your husband's using to top-coat your wood floors. (And then she proceeds to lick it off.) Everything takes so much longer than it's 'supposed' to take. Need a glass of water? Too bad. You can't have it right now. Your entire kitchen, including the sink, has been blocked off for a week. The water pitcher doesn't fit in the bathroom sink, so you take it to...
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In the Silence That Follows: A Love Story
My dear friend Brooke recently wrote, “I want to listen to what I really want to be working on, what I really want to be writing, where I really want to be spending my energy … and then do that.” This resonated with me, because I've been having trouble listening lately. And when I am having difficulty listening, I am most in need of guidance. Authentic listening is a lot more demanding than it sounds. It asks that you stop and be still. And in the terrifying silence that follows, it asks that you open your heart to what you...
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Breaking News: Your Birthday is a Big Deal (As Are You).
In my book, a birthday is a Big Deal. I realize that this may make me sound a bit naive or child-like. After all, isn’t making a fuss over birthdays something you’re supposed to, well, outgrow? Many of us claim to have outgrown birthdays, but I don't think that's true. It's more that we've metered our expectations. We've lived long enough to know that many celebrations don't turn out as planned, that high expectations are a setup for disappointment. We've had friends and family members forget our special day, and, in turn, we've forgotten the special days of others. We've...
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