I have often thought that life seems to move in ten-year chapters. The first ten years are our childhood, when so much is formed in us quietly and deeply, long before we understand what is shaping us. The second ten are our teenage years, when we begin reaching for our own identity and trying to…
Tag: faith
The Other Way Around
Here Down Under, everything always feels a little bit the other way around. While the northern hemisphere is welcoming Easter in springtime and Christmas in winter, we Australians are doing our own upside-down version of things — Christmas in summer heat, with sunburn, salads, and trips to the beach. Then Easter arrives with cooler mornings,…
The Gift of Lament
There is something deeply human and deeply biblical about lament. The Psalms have taught me that faith is not made up only of praise and singing, but also of sighing, longing, questioning, and bringing our sorrows honestly before God. They do not ask us to tidy ourselves up before we come. They do not pretend…
Writing While Able
I have lived for some years now with a certain kind of uncertainty, the kind that quietly follows me even on ordinary days. It is not always loud. Sometimes it sits far enough in the background that I can almost forget it is there. Life feels normal for a while. I breathe a little more…
The Speed of Change
There are seasons in life when almost nothing seems to change. Days follow one another so faithfully they begin to blur. Morning arrives, evening settles, and tomorrow looks much like today. Life moves along its tracks with a reassuring rhythm. Predictable. Familiar. Safe. In those seasons, change is so subtle it can almost go unnoticed….
Echoed Dreams
She talks about her dreams as if they are already beginning to take shape — a life imagined in bright strokes, full of meaning and promise. There is certainty in her voice, the kind that doesn’t yet know how easily the world can complicate things. I listen, and I am taken back. I remember dreaming…
Stay, I Pray You
Last night I saw a musical that quietly undid me. It exceeded every expectation I carried in with me. Anastasia was exquisite — moving, tender, and deeply human. One song in particular stayed with me long after the curtain fell. “How can I desert you?”At eleven years old, I didn’t have the words for this…
Between Breaths
New Year’s Eve is the night when time asks us to look back. Not with nostalgia, but with honesty. It is not a celebration so much as a reckoning — an inventory of moments that never asked to be remembered but stayed anyway. The conversations that altered us. The silences that taught us more than…
Quiet Reflection
When I was younger, the days between Christmas and New Year felt almost sacred. A quiet pause in the calendar where I would reflect on what had been and carefully map out what was to come. Lists were written, intentions set, dreams neatly arranged as though life itself might follow my handwriting. I still return…
In the Stillness
There are nights when exhaustion settles into my bones, yet sleep refuses to come. And it always seems to happen at the most inconvenient times — like now, when Christmas is just around the corner. A season that sparkles once a year, bringing light, joy, and that familiar warmth I usually cherish. But life doesn’t…
Apples of Gold 