everything.

friday was a rare treat--i got to spend the evening with my girlcrush taylor swift (and twenty thousand middle school girls) in atlanta, courtesy of the ununcle. right about when we realized that this particular fan demographic has the gift of sustained shrieking at decibels that endanger your ears, i yelled to loren in my best ironic voice: have i ever mentioned you're my favorite relative? he didn't hear me.

now i know y'all are going to tell me how t.swift is pitch-challenged and flighty and whatnot, and maybe so. (i'm sorry, taylor. i love you forever.) but ALSO she is hilarious and adorable and everything i loved about high school, and that's pretty much all i require in a rock star.





it was different this time, traipsing in and out of the hartsfield-jackson airport knowing that, if God continues to lead and provide, we're jetting out of that place in three skinny months. i spent the whole time scanning the layout and cataloguing travel skills to rehearse with the small folk: airplane etiquette, TSA checkpoints, immigration, Sticking With Your Parents in Crowded Terminals.

also, thank you friends, for your steadying encouragement last week. i should have been clearer--while our homeschooling dynamics are far from sparkly, my prayer for hope was in regard to something else entirely. my dad had a health issue with potentially grave implications, and it was one of those weeks where you're stripped down to just having God, and you know for sure that it's enough. we have Him, and He keeps us, and the whole thing sings of redemption.





and he's checked out okay, my dad. i'm not sure exactly (or at all) why we are spared some sorrows and not others, but i know that it all shakes out beautiful because we have a God who's bled a way back to Him. and that's not just enough, it's everything.

hope.

every year i rally my best efforts in an attempt to enjoy spring. i'm a firm believer in growth and color and beginning again, but ninety five percent of this season ends up drippy and cold, and it plays hard to get in the worst way. ah, spring. i five percent love you.







as i type, the blue of the sky has been cottoned over with bright grey, and the world is wet and trembling with thunder. but still the trees look like this, bare-fingered branches asking for God. i'm there with them in the bald reaching, a beggar too needy to be tamed by fear or shame. Jesus, Son of david, have mercy on me.

i know what i'd like Him to do, to tidy and heal and fix our right-nows. but we also stand sure in the hope of life unending, and we want Him more than breath itself, so please God. give us You. at the beginning and end, we want You.





in other news, i am now homeschooling our youngest child. the shenanigans at school reached their saturation point, so now he has the unparalleled joy of mom as his teacher. (it is hard to slip by with sub-par efforts when your teacher knows exactly what you’re capable of, plus she lives at your house.) all in all, the days have been quite peaceful, and that's how i can TELL some of y'all have been busting your kneecaps in prayer. thank you.




My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

and we are, still. pinning all our hopes on Him.