I woke up to an already buzzing household. Eliot is up before the sun and brings Travis with him, spilling his toys all over the bedroom floor to play until Isaiah and I come in to play, too. We struggled to do a little homeschooling, and my temper and patience flared up and down as Eliot’s did, especially when he dumped the steaming hot coffee all over me. We trudged through the rest of the morning, and I stopped to... Read more
Often, when I pray, if I pray, it is a rushed and shallow-felt rendering of phrases. It is a call for Jesus “to be with” and “to be in,” but is pierced with rush and busyness. It is prayer in the loudness, and then, when all is quiet, I’ve quite forgotten the slow ways. I drove to the salon to get my haircut. Usually, I get in the Highlander and turn on the radio, scanning stations for something sweet and... Read more
I have a tan bag that I take to the coffee shop when I write, slung over my shoulder, full of books and a giant laptop. Travis got it at an Evangelicals for Peace conference at Georgetown a few years ago, and he brought it home to me. On the front is printed: Look Deeply. Act Justly. Love Radically. A few weeks ago, a big hole appeared in the bottom of it. My pens would fall out as I walked... Read more
Travis sat across from me, that stern and determined look in his eye. Eliot says that it’s his mad look, when his eyebrows are crinkled down toward each other like that. But I know differently. It means he’s listening. “We can’t think of this next semester as just a season. It’s life. Tomorrow is our life.” We’d just heard the sermon that morning, one that tore at our insides and made us want to leap from our chair and throw... Read more
Sometimes I ask you to bring the calm in a series of waves, a slow lapping onto the shore of my being. But today, I ask for an avalanche, a blanket of snow that pummels me with the kind and powerful essence of exactly who You are and who You’re calling me to be. I’ve got no words to bring me in, no prose to call my mind to the quiet place where I find you. I am in a... Read more
Last night we celebrated a family-friendly New Year with some sweet, new friends. We had homemade pizza, we made s’mores with marshmallows the size of Eliot’s fist, and we toasted to the New Year at promptly 8:00. We raised our cups of sparkling wine, and the kids chugged their apple cider. We blew noise makers. It was a beautiful ruckus. We stopped a few moments later and tried to explain to the kids what it means to be a new year. But... Read more
Every year after Christmas, my entire being finds itself in an odd funk, a strange cloud of melancholy. After the slow and glorious build to Christmas Day, I’m left feeling the dread of What next? And it wasn’t until yesterday that I could name it, put a face and identity to the monster heckling me at the corner of Old and New, Past and Future. The Fear Monster hides himself under a dark cloak, but somehow he’s in my head and... Read more
At the beginning of December, I wrapped Advent gifts for my sons—books and a Christmas movie, something they could enjoy along the well-trodden path to Christmas Day. I’ve been asking myself, as I do every year, what exactly Advent means for us. But this time, things are different. Living in a new city makes me different, living in a new season of work and family makes me expectant of all future mysteries, and so, Advent has appeared to me... Read more
The wicks of our Advent candles have barely burned as they should, so they are simply little black fingers curling toward the ceiling, begging for heat and light. Our mouths have barely spoken of exactly what Advent means, what the manger scene gives to all of humanity. We have been lying in our beds, on our couches, any square inch of space that takes away the flu-aches. And when the fogginess rises away from our brains, we see clearly that... Read more
I have less than a handful of sister friends across the states who I can turn to via text message or phone call. It can be 2 words or 2,000, a stuttering and spluttering of what life is like in a day, and how deeply I need communion with God. And then I’ve got tangible, right down the road friends who are becoming nearer and dearer family to us every day, and if I called, they’d answer, too, and pray,... Read more
Stories - with Kaitlin B. Curtice
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