Words From the Well

My daughter and I threw on our swimwear, sprayed on a can of sunscreen, and couldn’t wait to stroll from our condo to the pool. We lazed, arms propped on the infinity edge providing sweeping views of the beach. Straight ahead the sun beamed, glistening on the sand like tiny golden nugget reflections. Beachgoers laughed and frolicked in the surf. I glanced to the right. Dark clouds loomed, a sure promise of a pop-up storm that I predicted would be right on top of us within the quarter-hour. We paddled to the edge and packed up our pool gear. The first drops began to fall just as we reached the…

I celebrated a birthday at the end of June. I’m not going to disclose my level of antiquation, but as the El Arroyo sign says, “Please be patient with me. I’m from the 1900’s.” My daughter asked me at one point that week, “Mom, do you need to just go take a nap?” I was trying to decide prioritization of my cleaning and laundry list, and I suppose it became like being in quicksand for a moment trying to figure out the best route to completion. Isn’t it ironic how tables turn full circle and aging can revert us to the needs of a toddler? Like a mandatory afternoon nap…

I attended a funeral yesterday for the grandmother of my niece’s husband. While I’ve not spent much time with this precious woman, each time I had the pleasure of being in her presence at family functions, she always had a smile, perfectly placed lipstick, and a style that just radiated with sparkle. I had just expected to be a presence of support for my niece and her husband’s family. What I didn’t expect was the memory reel that played out in my mind like Clark Griswold sitting in the attic with his blue turban wrapped head watching family videos with tear-streaked cheeks as Ray Charles crooned. Her grandchildren, including my…

I’m an early riser. On most days, around 4:45 a.m., my internal alarm dings. I’m up. I take a medication that requires an empty stomach and waiting at least thirty minutes before partaking in coffee. I try to earmark that interim between waking and the delightful waft of my favorite brew for the Lord. This morning was a technicolor experience. In His gentle, patient kindness, He revealed to me the disillusionment of where I’ve been banking my treasure. Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where…

Clear waters lapped the edges of the dock that I could have perched on for hours in picturesque Colorado. In late June, snow remained carpeted on the distant mountaintops in glistens of iridescent shimmer. Peace encapsulated this space save for my inability to operate a spinning reel. My speed is much more in tune with a classic Zebco spincast. I never can get the groove of the release and flip that’s necessary for mastery of the spinning reel contraption, and this moment ended in a dumpster fire of twisted line…which was then handed over to my husband… who released an audible sigh and began the maze of entanglement. In the…

The room was silent save for the strategic pauses between coordinate calls as my daughter and I studied our Battleship boards, envisioning our opponent’s ship positions. For the longest time, we called misses. No action. No threat. Nothing to worry about. A skosh boring, frankly. Until she called the first hit. My pulse picked up, and her attention honed. I knew I’d been had, and it was only a matter of time. Like a sonar ping echoing my presence were her next calls… Hit. Hit. Hit. Sunk. Battleship is akin to the enemy’s end game. He constantly calls coordinates under the guise of quandaries and temptations of all form. Some…

My husband was preparing to go out of town for work for the week, so we stayed home this particular Sunday morning to worship online and see him off. The bold knock on the door gave us pause. With an under his breath, “Can’t they see our ‘No Soliciting’ sign?”, he sauntered to the door. The man asked if he was the parent or guardian of our daughter. She was sitting right by me on the couch and looked at me with eyes rounded as her breathing intensified. Something was askew. As I rounded the corner to the entryway, a police officer stood holding our daughter’s lavender Jon Hart school…

I bought my daughter an old school 35 mm disposable camera. There is something thrilling about hunting for on point photographs to take with the twenty-seven exposures wound tightly inside and the anticipation of waiting to get the film developed. It’s a toss up as to whether photographic efforts will be epic fails or glory shots. A waiting game. In this 35 mm life, we don’t always get to choose which exposures we would like to have heaping helpings of on our camera reel and which we’d prefer to omit altogether. Vacations. Hilarious family pictures. Beautiful scenery. Fill the reel. Cancer. Unexpected tragedy. Continual calamities. Preferable omission. In His loving-kindness,…

I’ve been thinking about the word salvation for quite some time. The fact that that one word is the crux of the difference in our eternal destination. Salvation. Deliverance from harm and ruin by faith in Christ. In Him having everything. As we enter into this season of Lent, I’m freshly awestruck and humbled at the love of our Savior. My life is riddled with mistakes and poor decisions when choices made, to allude to John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, led me off the King’s Highway. The Enemy weaves such cunning narratives. David’s response to wrongdoing in Psalm 51 speaks to the gift of salvation and the steadfastness of the…

Yesterday I was called out of junior high History class to scurry to Lubbock so that our family could welcome my oldest nephew into the world. He just turned thirty. Yesterday I excused myself from class at A & M and drove as fast as I could within limits to make it from College Station to San Angelo so that our family could welcome my niece into the world. She is about to turn twenty-four. Yesterday we welcomed my sister’s youngest, another sweet nephew into the world. Premature, but you wouldn’t know that now with his towering six-foot plus stance. He just turned seventeen. Yesterday, with nerves singing and excitement…