What does cancer look like? What does it smell like, or taste like or feel like? To me, it feels like melting and it smells like the inside of an N95 mask during a four hour chemotherapy session. Even after I’m home and the mask is off, it’s the metallic taste that coats my tongue; …
Delectable Faith
What makes a banana split or a buffet better than just plain ice cream or simple salad? The layers of goodness heaped on the already delicious base. Of course ice cream alone is a treat but add on your favorite toppings and a pile of fresh whipped cream and it only gets better. Faith is …
All You Need Is One
Buzzer in hand, thumb resting on the alert button. The fingers of my other hand are waffled with my deliberately sleep-deprived teenage son’s. The minutes in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit tick on endlessly. Day one had gone more quickly with settling in, the novelty of watching pediatric floor kid tv, having forty plus leads attached …
Backward Thinking
Have you ever overheard someone’s comment and thought, “Wow! Really?” I’ll be honest, that’s my first thought when I read a lot of what’s posted on social media and in the news these days. I’m left scratching my head in amazement, seriously wondering how some people function day to day. Earlier this week, I had …
God Shaped
Water can shape a landscape. Rushing water carves out banks over time and riverbeds widen or new channels form. Trees fall creating natural bridges or obstructions. Stones are uncovered. Several days of heavy rain over the past week have carved a trench through our mulch bed. On a walk with my husband and our Great …
RSVP
Handwritten letters have almost entirely disappeared, having been replaced by electronic communication. Invitations, with the exception of weddings, are more than likely texted nowadays. RSVP, when attached to an invitation, once meant the host expected to hear from you. A meal and a place at the table were being reserved in your name at the …
Have You Decided?
Menu confusion is my nemesis, hovering over every lunch date and dinner plan. I can’t concentrate on making conversation for trying to decide what I should order. Usually there are so many excellent choices, it’s hard to choose just one. In my experience, most servers are pretty good at reading their costumers. They recognize indecision …
Feel The Heat
What does pure, unadulterated faith look like, the faith of a child that Jesus commended? I saw it in the face of my eighteen year old son and heard it in his voice, as we contemplated the possibility of brain surgery after eight years of tweaking and changing medications failed to stop his seizures. I …
Fitting In
The year my daughter received a fifteen hundred piece puzzle for Christmas and determined we would not to go to bed until it was finished was the year I stopped enjoying jigsaw puzzles. We finished it, framed it, and said never again! She still enjoys puzzles and games, but with a newborn at home, they’re …
Walking Down Briers
When I received my cancer diagnosis and we found that I would need radiation and chemotherapy before having surgery to remove my tumor, my husband began walking with me and the Danes twice daily, weather-permitting, to keep my heart healthy for surgery. Our community has many well-groomed walking trails, but Paul began cutting a trail …
A Fitting Reply 