There are some places that seem to hold a feeling for you, so that when you return, something in you settles before you even understand why. Marysville is like that for me. This summer, on one of those fierce Australian days when the heat feels almost solid, we found ourselves drawn again to the mountain…
Tag: faith
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….
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
Sometimes the traditions we cherish most become even more meaningful in the harder years. 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,…
The Beauty of Advent
Some things are received more deeply when we make room for them slowly. There is something about Advent that reaches into me very deeply. Every year, when it comes around again, I feel it before I can properly explain it. It comes quietly, like a soft stillness settling over my soul, like the first pale…
Ink from Pain
Healing does not erase the wound; it changes the way we look at the world. I recently joined a writing group that meets at a local church, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. It’s become one of my favourite outings now, this gathering of minds and hearts, of stories and pens. There’s…
The Day I Trembled
Being given more time to live is a gift that includes both the joy and the sorrow. I stood at the gates of eternity. Not metaphorically. Not in some dreamy, poetic sense. I stood there, suspended between breath and no breath, between the beating heart and silence. Between earth… and heaven. The cord of life…
We Call on Him
Remembering to turn to God in gratitude is just as important as turning to Him in hardship. For a number of years, Peter and I shared a quiet ritual with our dear friends, Stephen and his late wife Wendy. We each brought a song — something that spoke to us in that season of life…
Storyteller
Our lives hold more than any record of them could ever contain. My phone flashes the warning again: Storage almost full. Again. I take a lot of photos. Not for an audience. Not to curate a flawless life. I take them to gather crumbs, breadcrumbs scattered through the forest of my days. Each image a…
