Last Friday night, we hit pause on the movie we were watching and meandered to the kitchen for snacks. Rich looked out at the darkening east windows and said, “Wow...”

I knew what was coming next and looked up at the clock. Sure enough —it was a little after 8 o’clock, and the words arrived right on time, just like they do every year in mid-August.

It wasn’t dramatic, and it’s definitely not autumn. The marigolds are still blooming, the cicadas are still singing. The air still carries the heat and humidity that says Missouri Summer.

And yet...something has shifted, changed almost without our noticing.

The sweet light hits at a different time.

“It’s sure getting dark earlier,” he said.

Once those words have been spoken for the first time each fall, I can’t help but lean into them every day. I feel summer — and time in general — slipping away.

The First Hint of Change

Late summer has a particular kind of honesty. Even though the mimosa still has blooms and the grass still needs mowing (yes, it does!), the days quietly begin giving back a minute here...another minute there. The sun rises a bit later and sets a bit earlier.

Nothing is ending…not yet, but something is changing. The air is tinged with a sense of “if you’re gonna do it ‘this summer’ ya better get going!”

Maybe part of it is knowing I have a birthday coming up? My subconscious reacts to these subtle changes.

The mums show up at the garden center. One earlier sunset somehow becomes a clear reminder that the days of summer are coming to an end. Which then turns to anticipation of crisp fall mornings and first frosts. The holidays are around the corner bringing cold, gray, winter with them. Will we get much snow this year?

In less than thirty seconds my thoughts travel from a lovely August sunset to a January blizzard!

Get a grip, woman!

Is that one of the ways anxiety works?

Living Three Seasons Ahead

Fear is a useful tool that helps keep us alive. Fear picks up on a change, but then it passes the pen to anxiety to write the rest of the story! In an instant, one earlier sunset becomes an entire snowy winter.

Perhaps that’s why anxiety feels so exhausting?

Life demands that we live in today, which has troubles enough of its own, but anxiety asks us to simultaneously live in seasons we’ve yet to reach. Anxiety leans into tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.

I remember when Wyatt was learning how to walk. Worrying about whether he would bonk his noggin on the corner of a table morphed into worries about teaching him to ride a bike and drive a car!

And again…get a grip!

Get a grip…yes, and one of the ways I did that was by recognizing that fear isn’t something we ever eliminate completely. Fear…it’s just a part of ordinary life, an emotion that shows up occasionally (uninvited!) and hops in the car and wants to go for a ride.

So what do we do then?

Resilience is learning that when fear jumps in the passenger seat for a ride, we don’t have to hand over the steering wheel. I don’t have to manufacture certainty about tomorrow…but I do need to remember who is driving.

Staying in Today’s Light

That evening, after Rich commented on the earlier sunset, we went out to the front porch to watch the sky change colors. The sky softened into pink and gold, and the cicadas continued their chirping. The first stars appeared overhead.

Nothing about that evening asked me to solve all the problems of September, or October, or January. The sunset invited me to be faithful to an August night.

Perhaps that’s one of the hidden gifts of our ordinary days. Be a lily in the field of your life. Live this season instead of borrowing trouble from seasons before they arrive. There will be time enough to welcome autumn and prepare for winter.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: Where has your mind been traveling lately? Are you living in today’s light? Or have you quietly wandered into a season that hasn’t arrived? Have you been traveling alone, or have fear and anxiety gone along for the ride?

An Invitation: The next time you notice something changing—a little earlier sunset, a first yellow leaf, a cooler morning—pause before letting your thoughts race ahead.

Take one slow breath, look around, and ask yourself, “What season am I actually in right now?” Then engage that season as gently as you can.

Tomorrow will arrive soon enough.

With you in the growing,

Have you ever had times when it seems like every time you turn around something else is broken?

For the last two years, that’s been us!

It’s been so entirely frustrating, and if I rattled off a litany of everything that’s broken and needed repair or replacing you wouldn’t believe me.

It’s gotten to the point if Rich says, “Well, you’re not going to believe this...” I instinctively feel myself whimpering, grabbing the checkbook, and bracing for the next disaster.

It’s been feeling as though our home has entered “repair season.” And I’m not gonna lie — it seems personal —like all the appliances and vehicles have ganged up on us, and they’re winning.

Ghrrr!

Seriously! Can we PLEASE just have one month where nothing breaks?!? Thirty days when no crisis ensues? Four whole weeks in a row where all the appliances agree to keep doing what we bought them to do? One month where the only thing on my to-do list is enjoy summer?

Expectations

People blame social media, and all the picture perfect breakfasts, backyard pools, and bigger-than-life vacations that show up in our Facebook and Instagram feeds. But long before that there were stacks of glossy magazines like Better Homes & Gardens and House Beautiful filled with (literally) page after page of picture perfect homes.

After a steady diet of “wonderful,” “amazing” and “incredible,” it’s easy to feel like we don’t measure up. We develop expectations for our own lives — our own picture perfect lives — where nothing breaks, nothing gets stained, and dust knows better than to land on the end tables.

Surprise! (okay…notsomuch…) Picture perfect isn’t real life!

The grind of fix, repair, and maintain is part and parcel of real life, and while it may seem like those things slow our forward roll, they certainly don’t cancel it.

The funny thing is, when I think about it, the things I treasure most aren’t perfect. And in fact, I love them all the more because of their imperfections.

I adore old quilts because they’re crinkled and cozy from use, and I remember being snuggled under their layers watching Christmas movies in years gone by. I enjoy old books because those coffee stained pages tell their own story of other times I’ve read this tale. Butter-stained pages in cookbooks remind me of the banana bread I baked in another lifetime. Their wear and imperfections tell the story of their value and usefulness.

So why do I get my knickers in a twist when my own home starts telling me the same story?

I mean, it’s a HOME, not a museum, and it’s primary job is to be lived in. Of course things break if they’re being used! My favorite coffee cup gets chipped or the handle breaks off. The paint gets a scuff as I move furniture to clean underneath it. Spaghetti sauce leaves a permanent stain on the table cloth.

Nothing stays new forever.

The People Who Need Repair

The more I thought about it, the harder it was to keep the lesson confined to homes and appliances.

We need repair too!

Marriages don’t stay healthy because two people said, “I do” umpteen years ago. Friendships don’t survive without connection points. Faith doesn’t grow strong without seasons of rebuilding.

Perhaps this is one of the quietest lessons of the ordinary times in life?

Because guess what? Life is a lot like having a home. You don’t prove your care and devotion by never having to fix anything but by continuing to show up with your toolbox to do the work, even when that work isn’t particularly glamorous.

Who throws a party because the toilet quit leaking? How often do you see someone post pictures of a successful garbage disposal repair?

But hidden inside all those ordinary repairs is a simple declaration that this life is worth the effort.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What in your life have you begun to see as a nuisance instead of a privilege to care for? Is it your home? A relationship? A body that changes as it ages?

An Invitation: This week, when something breaks—and sooner or later, something probably will—pause before frustration takes over and ask yourself one simple question: How many years of faithful service came before this moment?

You may discover that what first feels like an inconvenience is also a quiet reminder of how much goodness has already been given.

With you in the growing,

Every spring, I am SO eager to mow the grass.

During the winter, Rich services the mowers — fresh oil, sharp blades, blow off all the leftover clippings, the works — so when we pull the mowers out of the shed (yes, there’s more than one mower around here 🤦‍♀️), it feels a bit ceremonial.

The air is still cool, and the trees are just beginning to leaf out in that bright lime color. The grass has somehow turned green almost overnight, and cutting it feels more like a celebration than a chore.

Spring is here. WOO HOO! The earth is alive again.

Together we embark on MOWING #1 for the year!!

By this time in the summer — and mowing 14, 15, or 16 — my enthusiasm has…faded somewhat.

The grass is still growing, and so are the blasted weeds. The edges need trimming. The flower beds need pulling. The tiny volunteer mimosa tree seedlings need to be dealt with.

The humidity is just shy of us needing gills while we’re outside working, but somehow the mower still manages to throw dust into the air. In no time I’m a sweaty, sticky mess, and as I go back and forth on the mower, I find myself fantasizing about a small drought.

Nothing serious — just enough to slow things down.

Wishing for Less Life

The last time I mowed the grass, I thought about how lovely it would be to have a week or two without needing to mow.

And the real reason I wished for less growth? Because I was tired of tending it.

I do this in other parts of my life, too.

How often do I ask to have life and have it more abundantly…and then kvetch about the work — the washing and drying, the cooking and cleaning — required to care for it?

For a long time, I treated recurring work as though it were somehow inferior to work that could be completed. Finished work gave me satisfaction. Recurring work made me feel behind.

Until I realized recurring work isn’t proof I’m failing to get ahead, it’s evidence I’ve been given something worth tending.

Faithfulness in the Middle

The temporary nature of recurring work doesn’t make the work meaningless. The work that returns might be some of the holiest work we will ever do because the work of tending is about relationship, even if that faithfulness seems to leave no permanent evidence.

This about it. This week the marigolds are flourishing and need only regular drinks of water, but next week? They might not need any water because they received more than enough rain, but they might need deadheading so they can put all their energy into growing new blooms. I will sprinkle those deadheaded seeds on the ground so they can be ready for a new season next year.

Are the people in our lives so very different?

Perhaps that is what ordinary life and ordinary times teach us? Growth isn’t always exciting, and faithfulness isn’t always inspiring. Sometimes spiritual maturity looks like embracing the way the meaningful parts of life require repetition.

Pray…again.

Be patient…again.

Show kindness…again.

Pay attention again.

It’s all about mowing the grass…again.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What recurring work in your life have you begun to resent simply because it never stays finished?

An Invitation: This week, choose one returning task and consciously approach it differently. Don’t pretending to enjoy it. Don’t rush through it willy-nilly. Simply pause long enough to notice what the task is tending.

The work may return next week (okay, tomorrow) — it probably will. But perhaps the returning work is not a failure to reach the finish line, it’s the rhythm of being alive.

With you in the growing,

When I learned to drive, I learned on the back roads of Missouri. Around here, gravel roads are an exercise in humility…for that matter so are the black tops. The roads wind through the hills, disappear around blind curves, climb steep ridges, and dip unexpectedly into creek bottoms and low water crossings.

You don’t fly down a Missouri gravel road unless you’re looking to end up in a ditch or a fence row. So I learned to drive carefully on those gravel roads. Slow down before the curve. Watch for loose gravel. Expect the unexpected.

Those roads taught me well.

Then I started dating Rich.

The first time we went back to his hometown in northeast Nebraska, I was a bit nervous about meeting his parents for the first time, so I took a deep breath when he turned right onto the gravel road that led to his home.

I settled into the passenger seat, expecting another slow, winding drive. Instead…Rich stepped on the gas, and his 1974 Camaro took off like a bat out of hell.

I grabbed the dashboard, certain we were about to meet Jesus.

Rich, meanwhile, was completely relaxed.

I must have made a some sort of panicked pre-death whimper because he turned his head and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“What are you doing?!?! ARE. YOU. TRYING. TO. KILL. US?”

It wasn’t until later that I realized the problem wasn’t Rich’s driving.

The problem was my assumptions.

The Roads That Raise Us

Missouri gravel roads and northeast Nebraska gravel roads have almost nothing in common…other than gravel.

In Missouri, gravel roads probably started their lives as cow paths that gradually expanded with use. The roads curve around hills and trees and creeks — they can be narrow and snaky.

Nebraska gravel roads follow the section lines. They’re straight, broad, and long. You can see for what seems like forever.

The speed that felt crazy to me was perfectly reasonable to someone who had spent his life driving roads where you could see a mile ahead.

Neither of us was wrong. We were simply responding to the roads that had taught us.

I’ve thought about that many times over the years. Not just while driving, but also while living.

The Roads We Carry Inside Us

It occurs to me that people are a little like gravel roads, carrying the landscapes that shaped us.

Some people grew up in homes where every disagreement became an argument. Others grew up learning that nothing difficult ever need to be discussed. Some learned that the safest thing to do was speak up. Others learned that safety meant keeping your mouth shut and your head down. Some learned to trust easily, while others learned it was better to hold their hearts close.

Without realizing it, we spend much of our lives driving according to the roads that first taught us how. We assume everyone else’s road looks like ours.

When they don’t, we wonder why they slammed on the brakes…or why they didn’t.

Last week was our anniversary, and one of the quiet gifts of marriage has been discovering that Rich and I weren’t just raised in different houses. We were raised on W-A-Y different roads in W-A-Y different neighborhoods.

Straight Paths

There’s a verse in Proverbs about trusting in the Lord “and he will make straight your paths.”

For years, I pictured that verse as God doing exactly that, like literally getting rid of all those curves and bumps from the road ahead. But today, I hear it a little differently.

Maybe the promise isn’t that every road becomes straight (because perpetually straight roads can be a bit dull to drive) — maybe it’s that God guides us faithfully whether the road appears straight like Nebraska…or winding like Missouri.

Because faith isn’t learning one perfect way to drive, it’s adapting to conditions and learning to trust the One who knows all the roads.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: Who in your life frustrates you because they seem to approach the world so differently than you do?

An Invitation: What if, instead of asking, “Why are they like that?” you asked, “What kind of roads taught them to see the world this way?” Work to practice curiosity before judgment.

When someone surprises you, pause, and imagine the landscape that shaped them — the curves and straightaways, the hills and valleys. Because understanding it might make you a kinder traveling companion.

With you in the growing,

Some of my happiest childhood memories begin with a sound — not words, not music — just the quiet rhythm of a porch swing.

The chains settled into their familiar Clink... Clink... Clink...cadence as Grandpa rocked back and forth on the porch of the old farmhouse that I now call home.

It was a slow, unhurried sound, the kind you hardly notice until years later, when you realize it has become part of who you are.

Summer Sunday afternoons were sacred.

There was always work to be done on the farm. Always. Fences needed mending. Hay needed cutting and baling, and when the baler broke, the machinery needed attention.

But on Sunday afternoons, there was something else more important that any work that needed to be done, something Grandpa considered vital: the St. Louis Cardinals were on the radio.

So we sat on the porch. The swing rocked. Grandpa’s trusty white transistor radio clicked to life. Jack Buck and Mike Shannon joined us from their broadcast booth. And for a few glorious hours, the work could wait.

What We Couldn’t See

Sometimes Grandpa watched the games on television, but mostly he listened to them on the radio.

It may not sound remarkable until you think about what radio asks of us. Radio refuses to do the imagining for you.

A CRACK of the bat, and it’s up…up…up….hit deep into left field, but your mind paints the outfield. The announcer describes a daring, diving catch, but you decide how spectacular it looked. You hear the roar as the crowd goes crazy, but you imagine the stadium — blue sky, green grass, and the smell of popcorn.

Radio quietly trusts that your imagination still knows how to do its job. And somehow, because we create the pictures ourselves, they become all the more vivid.

The Gift of Presence

Looking back now, I honestly don’t remember who won most of those games, the standing, the batting averages or final scores.

But I remember Grandpa, the porch swing, the warm summer breeze, and the feeling there was nowhere else in the world I needed to be.

As a child, I thought we were listening to baseball, but now I wonder if the real lesson was something much deeper: sometimes the greatest gift we can offer another person isn’t activity.

It’s presence.

Mary Chose the Better Part

A few weeks ago I was sympathizing with Martha, busily doing all the things that needed doing, but this week I’ve been thinking about her sister.

Luke tells us that Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.”

Changing my perspective, I wonder if Mary’s choice was difficult for her? Was she feeling antsy? Guilty? Was it hard to sit still?

Because while Mary sat, the work sat there, too! The dishes didn’t wash themselves. The bread didn’t bake itself. The house didn’t tidy itself. So many little jobs, all waiting to be done.

And yet Jesus gently affirmed her choice. Not because work doesn’t matter, but because presence matters, too.

The Quiet Work of the Imagination

How much of that imagining have we lost?

Not because we’re inherently less imaginative than previous generations, but because so much of life now arrives fully formed.

It’s a picture instead of a story around a crackling fire. A video instead of a carefully crafted description. It’s constant in-your-face noise instead of quiet, empty spaces where our minds can wander.

There is something profoundly human about listening.

It may seem that listening is a passive activity, but it’s absolutely not. Listening asks us to participate, to imagine, to linger, to become woven into the story instead of merely consuming it.

Faith itself asks something similar, because problems don’t come when every answer is supplied. Most of the faith pictures aren’t complete because we can’t move far enough back to see that bigger picture.

There are places where imagination, trust, and wonder quietly finish what words alone cannot.

Ordinary Time

Ordinary Time teaches that not every meaningful moment has to accomplish something. In the midst of busy, Busy, BUSY, some moments exist simply to be lived.

To sit on a porch swing and feel a sultry summer breeze.

To hear the clink of chains rocking back and forth.

To listen to the baseball game on the radio.

Moments like these may look unremarkable to someone driving past. It might not seem very exciting to post about on social media. But isn’t that the secret of Ordinary Time?

The holiest moments often don’t look extraordinary from the outside. They’re simply ordinary moments fully inhabited and completely lived.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: When was the last time you gave your full attention to something without needing it to be productive? Enjoyed the moment without trying to improve it?

An Invitation: This week, make a few minutes each day to simply BE. Soak up the moment and be fully present in it.

Go outside and sit in the rocking chair. And if you have a porch swing, set it to rocking. Find a baseball game on the radio, or start the fire pit and listen while someone reads a story aloud.

The world doesn’t always need another task completed.

What if the most important thing we can do is simply be fully present to the moment we’re already living?

With you in the growing,

There’s Iced Tea in the Fridge, Pull up a Chair, and Join Me at the Kitchen Table

If you’d like to support this work and receive a few extra reflections from the farmhouse along the way, I’d be grateful. A paid “Kitchen Table” subscription allows me to spend more mornings writing and sharing these reflections, so becoming a paid subscriber is a wonderful way to help these essays continue to grow.

Either way, I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for spending part of your week here…reading.

Join Me at the Kitchen Table

A few evenings ago I stepped out onto the porch just as the sun began to settle behind the trees in the western sky. And suddenly I heard it...

Cicadas.

Not one or two or ten, but thousands of them! Their steady reeee-aah, reeee-aah, reeee-aah chorus filled the woods around our farmhouse.

But the funny thing was, they hadn’t suddenly started singing. They’d probably been singing for days — maybe a week, maybe longer.

I was the one who came late to the party and finally started listening. Now at night, of course, I can’t not hear them. As soon as I step outside each evening to water the garden, they’re there—the unmistakable soundtrack to a Missouri summer.

Cicada song makes me wonder how many beautiful things in our lives don’t disappear...we simply stop noticing them.

The Background Music of Life

Just like there are soundtracks in movies, our lives have their own soundtracks. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and the louder more annoying hum of the refrigerator in the garage.

The tap-tap-tap of the woodpeckers pounding their heads against a tree, and the wind moving through the leaves of that same tree. The distant whistle of freight trains, and the soft clink of porch swing chains.

And most days, I don’t consciously hear any of it because my brain has quietly moved it into the background.

It turns out that ignoring things is one of the remarkable things our minds are designed to do. Noticing every sound with equal intensity all the time quickly becomes overwhelming, so our brains helpfully sort the familiar into the background.

It’s a wonderful gift.

Until it isn’t.

What Have I Tuned Out?

The sound of cicadas has me wondering whether I do the same thing with more than sounds.

Do we also tune out goodness? Do we focus so much on all we have to do when we get where we’re going, that we just don’t see the beauty of the country road we’re actually driving on? Do the bags of groceries that need to be put away blind us to the comfort of once again returning safely home.

I’ve often said that the opposite of love isn’t hate…it’s indifference. Perhaps a similar thing is true of gratitude. What if the opposite of gratitude isn’t complaining but simply no longer noticing all the wonderfulness that quietly surrounds us?

The beautiful gift of another ordinary Tuesday simply fades into the background until we hardly notice all we’ve been given.

Listening for Thin Silence

One of my favorite stories in Scripture (and one I relate to oh so well) is Elijah standing on the mountain waiting for God.

First a great wind blows through, but God isn’t in the wind. Then there’s an earthquake, but God’s not in in the earthquake. Next up is fire, but God’s not there either.

Finally comes what many of Bibles translate as “a still small voice.” But I’ve always loved another translation of the Hebrew: “the sound of thin silence.” — 1 Kings 19:12

What a remarkable phrase!

The sound...of silence, and not just any silence but “thin silence” — it almost feels like a contradiction, yet the meaning is completely clear: God isn’t always found in the spectacular. Sometimes Presence arrives so quietly that we almost miss it.

Which, if I’m being honest, is especially comforting to someone like me who also carries around a bit of tinnitus. There is already plenty of ringing in my ears!

Maybe what God asks of isn’t to hear more noise but to become attentive to the quiet.

And here during Ordinary Time, I’ve been discovering the joy that comes with recovering our ability to notice what has become familiar.

A cup of coffee in the morning. An evening breeze…and the sound of cicadas. The people who faithfully share our ordinary days.

The invitation of Ordinary Time is simply to hear them again, see them again, receive them again.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What has become background music in your life? What good gift has become so familiar that you’ve stopped noticing it?

An Invitation: This week, step outside for ten quiet minutes. Leave your phone inside. Don’t try to accomplish anything. Simply listen.

Listen long enough for the familiar sounds —the birds, the wind, the distant traffic, and your own brood of cicadas — to become new again. Listen for the sound of thin silence between the sounds.

You may discover that the world has been singing to you all along.

And perhaps gratitude begins not by finding something new...but by hearing once again what has always been there.

With you in the growing,

Join Me at the Kitchen Table

Thank you for spending part of your week here…reading.

If you’d like to support this work and receive a few extra reflections from the farmhouse along the way, I’d be grateful. A paid “Kitchen Table” subscription allows me to spend more mornings writing and sharing these reflections, so becoming a paid subscriber is a wonderful way to help these essays continue to grow.

Either way, I’m so glad you’re here.

Join Me at the Kitchen Table

Some of my most favorite vacation memories in might be a bit surprising to most. Those memories do not involve beaches, not mountains, not bustling cities. They had nothing to do with cruise ships or flights to the other side of the world. No special occasion or impressive holidays.

No, those very best memories involve visiting Rich’s grandparents at their home in Bloomfield, Nebraska.

It was always about the drive.

Rich’s grandparents had farmed their entire working lives before they retired to town. But retirement hadn’t diminished their love of the countryside. Every time we visited, it seemed we’d end up climbing into the car to “go see what there is to see.”

We’d drive the gravel section roads — checking the corn and soybeans, admiring the windbreaks, seeing somebody’s new irrigation system, watching the seasons unfold one field at a time.

He knew those roads better than anyone. But every so often, he’d grin, point toward an unfamiliar gravel road disappearing over a hill, and say, “I don’t think I’ve ever driven this road before.” Then, with all the excitement of a little boy setting off on an grand adventure, he’d add, “Let’s see where it goes!”

I loved that.

Here was a man who had spent his entire life in northeast Nebraska. He knew the land, the weather, and the rhythm of planting and harvest.

And yet he alwas found joy in discovering one more road.

Knee-High by the Fourth of July

Farm country has its own calendar, and one of the old sayings of summer was “knee-high by the Fourth of July.”

It wasn’t a guarantee. It wasn’t even a rule.

Rather, it was simply a hopeful way of measuring growth.

Planted in faith and cultivated with care. Watch the weather. And then...wait…and pray.

No amount of wishing or worry hurries the corn or beans because growth happens on its own timetable.

One ordinary day after another.

The Potential of Tiny Things

Jesus once pointed to something much smaller than a stalk of corn: he held up a mustard seed.

Not because it was impressive, because it certainly isn’t. Mustard seeds are tiny and easy to overlook. Yet that’s what he compared the kingdom of heaven to: a mustard seed.

“Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants.” ~ Matthew 13

What a spectacular image! But must mustard seeds don’t promise prolific growth overnight. Instead, mustard seeds reminds us that nearly everything worthwhile begins with something small and quiet.

A friendship.

A marriage.

A habit.

A prayer.

A quilt.

A life.

The beginnings are rarely dramatic, and the most important thing they require is time enough to grow.

Becoming Beginners Again

The older I get, the more I see there are two ways to age. One is to become increasingly certain that we’ve seen it all before. The other is to become increasingly curious.

Grandpa chose curiosity! The fact he hadn’t driven a particular road was what made it fun. “Let’s see where it goes!”

It’s so easy to settle into familiar routines, drive the same roads, read the same authors, watch the same movies. And then we assume we’ve already seen everything worth seeing.

But perhaps one of the gifts of Ordinary Time is that it quietly invites us to become beginners again.

To admit there are still roads we’ve never traveled. Still people we don’t fully know. Still ideas worth exploring. Still beauty just waiting to be discovered around the next bend.

Maybe growing older isn’t about knowing more roads, but about having the curiosity to wonder where they lead.

And that’s one of the quiet miracles of a well-lived life — not accumulating certainty, but cultivating curiosity!

The world has enough experts. What it needs are more people who still delight in discovery. People willing to roll down the windows, turn onto an unfamiliar road, and simply see what unfolds.

Ordinary Time

Ordinary Time isn’t simply the season of steady growth, it’s also the season of steady curiosity. Growth and curiosity belong together.

Seeds stop growing when they has nowhere left to reach, and people stop growing when there’s nowhere left they’re willing to wonder or wander.

Perhaps that’s why Jesus pointed to seeds so often? To remind us that life always stretching toward something we cannot yet see.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: When was the last time you allowed yourself to be a beginner? To admit you didn’t know? To explore for no other reason than because you were curious?

An Invitation: This week, take a road you’ve never driven before. Walk down an aisle at the big box store where you’ve never been. It doesn’t have to lead anywhere important.

Read an unfamiliar author. Grab some seeds on clearance and plant something you’ve never grown. Strike up a conversation with someone whose story you don’t yet know.

Most of all delight in the surprise of not already having all the answers. Because perhaps the most beautiful thing about growing older (at whatever age you may happen to be) isn’t how much we know — is that there’s still another road waiting to be explored.

With you in the growing,

For the past several years I’ve been working on a patriotic quilt for the America 250th celebration. Festive red, white, and blue — with blocks alternating between eight-pointed stars and split rail fences.

Most of the quilts I make are hand pieced. I enjoy the rhythm of it—the needle, the thread, the quiet accumulation of small stitches.

But when I started this quilt, I decided to be practical. Machine piecing would be faster, I told myself. More efficient and less time-consuming. At least that was my theory.

Several years later, as I’m finally finishing the hand quilting, I have to laugh a little because this quilt took just as long as many of my hand-pieced quilts. And quite possibly longer.

And it wasn’t because the sewing machine was slower…it’s because I was. Because I discovered something I’ve spent much of my life learning over and over again: the fastest way isn’t always the way that gets me there.

Why does She Quilt?

The funny thing is, I wasn’t making the quilt because I needed a quilt.

Honestly? I already have plenty of quilts, and I know the world isn’t suffering from a shortage of blankets. So, I wasn’t quilting to solve a problem.

I was quilting because I enjoy quilting. I love everything about the process (well, except sandwiching the three layers together — that’s a necessary evil). But otherwise, I enjoy choosing fabrics — the white on white stars and the red on red poppies — then watching patterns emerge. Stitching pieces together and seeing something larger take shape. The delicious sound of thread dragging through fabric.

The making itself is part of the reward! But somewhere along the way, though, I temporarily forgot that. And that’s how I ended up choosing a method that was theoretically faster but, for me, was considerably less delightful.

A Practicality Problem

Practicality and efficiency have their place. Sewing machines are wonderful things, and I love my vintage Bernina. The sewing machine wasn’t the problem — and machine piecing truly is faster.

For someone who enjoys machine piecing.

The problem was assuming my own delight didn’t matter.

I suspect many of us do that more often than we realize. GPS routes us along the quickest route. It’s efficient, optimized, and sensible.

And then we’re surprised when something feels missing.

Not because we’ve done anything wrong, but because we’ve quietly convinced ourselves that enjoyment in our ordinary daily lives is…optional.

That somehow delight is frivolous.

Or that if something brings us joy, it must somehow be less important than the practical alternative.

Ordinary Time — the ordinary accumulation of moments that eventually become a life— gives us the time to absorb a different type of lesson.

Martha’s Checklist

There’s a story in Scripture about Martha and Mary that I’ve been thinking about lately.

Martha is busy, productive, responsible, and getting things done. Meanwhile, Mary is simply sitting and listening.

I have such a soft spot for Martha because, frankly, I understand her. In very real ways, I am her. Certainly there’s always something in need of doing — laundry, gardens, meals, shopping for groceries to make the meals, emails, projects, and on and on.

And the world tends to reward people who accomplish things.

But in thinking about that story, I kinda wonder if Martha’s real struggle wasn’t busyness. Maybe it was forgetting why she was doing the work in the first place.

You know the feeling — that somewhere between purpose and productivity, delight gets lost.

The Things We Do for No Reason at All

One of the most beautiful and awe inspiring things about being human is that we do certain things for no practical reason whatsoever.

We plant flowers and paint pictures. We write poems and make music. We bake pies. We quilt. We take lazy meandering walks down a country road. We sit on a porch swing and listen to the tree frogs while it rains.

Because creating beauty is part of what makes us alive.

Delight is not a distraction from life — delight is what sustains life.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: Where in your life have you convinced yourself that delight doesn’t matter? What have you been rushing through simply because it seemed more practical?

An Invitation: This week, choose one thing you genuinely enjoy and give yourself permission to enjoy it. Not because it is productive or efficient. Not because it will help you get somewhere faster. But simply because it brings you delight.

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things” — Luke 10:41-42

Remember, you don’t have to earn every good thing.

With you in the growing,

This week Rich and I were driving down one of the two-lane blacktop roads near our house when I noticed the daylilies.

They were growing wild in the ditch among the chicory, Queen Anne’s lace, and every other sort of roadside weed that appears this time of year.

Bright orange blooms against the green of summer.

What struck me wasn’t that they were beautiful — rather, it was that those daylilies have probably been beautiful for several weeks, and I was only now noticing them.

We’ve driven this road countless times — in sunshine and rain — while running errands and making the ordinary trips that make up ordinary life.

And somewhere along the way, the flowers had become part of the background.

Not because they weren’t lovely.

But because they were familiar.

Vacation Eyes

It occurred to me that if I had encountered this exact same stretch of road while on vacation, we probably would have reacted very differently.

I might have said, “Hey, pull over! This is beautiful!” I certainly would have pointed the flowers out to Rich, and we might have stopped to take pictures.

The daylilies themselves wouldn’t have changed.

The road wouldn’t have changed, neither would the weather.

The only thing different would have been me — or more specifically, my attention.

When we’re on vacation, we expect to discover. We look for all that’s new. We slow down, become curious, notice details. We pay attention to the curve and flow of landscapes, architecture, flowers, meals, and sunsets we would likely ignore if they are part of our everyday routine.

You know what we did? We stopped in the middle of the road, then I got out and took pictures!

Some People Live All Year for Two Weeks

I know people who spend fifty weeks of the year waiting for two . Two weeks of vacation. Two weeks at the lake, at the beach, or in the mountains.

Please don’t misunderstand me—I’m not morally opposed to vacations and travel. There’s something wonderful about stepping away from routine and seeing new places.

But I’ve begun to wonder if the biggest part of the appeal of vacation isn’t the destination at all. Maybe it’s that vacations give us permission to notice…linger…pay attention.

The trouble comes when we assume that careful attention happens only during vacations, and then we spend most of our lives rushing through the very days that make up the most of our lives.

The Command Hidden in the Flowers

There’s a passage in the Sermon on the Mount that came to mind as we drove past those daylilies.

Jesus says:

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow...” (Matthew 6:28)

One thing I remember from my Koine Greek classes in college is the verb we translate “consider” isn’t a suggestion, or a casual invitation — grammatically it’s an imperative. A command.

Jesus isn’t saying: “Hey, folks if you have a moment and it’s not too much trouble, you might enjoy looking at some flowers.”

He’s saying: Pay attention! Look closely! Learn from these lilies!

The flowers aren’t just decorative — they’re teachers. Noticing them isn’t optional. It’s part of being fully alive.

The Magic of Ordinary Time

As you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about Ordinary Time lately. Not just the liturgical season, but the ordinary stretches of life itself.

The Tuesdays. The grocery runs. The familiar roads. The dishes. Mowing the grass. The laundry. The routines we perform so often we hardly think about them.

It’s easy to assume the magic lives elsewhere…like vacations, special events, and milestone moments. But what if we’ve got it all backwards? What if Ordinary Time is actually the most magical of seasons? Not because extraordinary things happen every day, but because ordinary things happen long enough and consistently enough to become extraordinary!

Gardens grow. Children grow. Friendships deepen. Skills develop. Books get written. Quilts get stitched. Lives take shape. All of it happening quietly, in the middle of ordinary days.

And perhaps that’s one of the great invitations of Ordinary Time.

Are you ready to become curious again? Are you willing to look at familiar places with fresh eyes? To drive the roads we’ve already traveled as though we were seeing them for the first time?

What if we stop postponing wonder until vacation? What if we stop postponing life until some future season? What if we notice what’s already blooming beside the road.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What beauty in your ordinary life have you stopped seeing simply because it has become familiar?

An Invitation: This week, drive a little slower. Take the long way home. Notice the flowers in the ditch. Appreciate the familiar face across the dinner table.

You don’t need pay for a plane ticket to pay attention.

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow...” — Matthew 6:28

Indeed, I shall.

With you in the growing,

My grandma Frieda — the one whose house I live in — was an amazing baker.

She was the kind of country kitchen baker who didn’t bother with measuring cups, but made majestically towering meringue pies nestled atop impossibly flaky pie crusts.

As a child, there was no better place to spend the day than in her kitchen watchi…

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Extry!

Read All About It!

Guess what’s happening three months from today — September 8th?

Want a hint?

Have you guessed yet?

Yes, indeed! The fourth book in my Holly’s Choice series will be released by Boys Town Press on September 8th!

I’m so excited about this new book launch because it centers around the simple yet powerful message – let peace begin…

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Pentecost always falls on a Sunday, which means Ordinary Time always begins on a Monday morning.

Isn’t that that strangely fitting? Maybe a bit ironic?

There’s no fancy procession and no dramatic liturgy. No poinsettias, no lilies, no candles, trumpets broadcasting the announcing the arrival of a new season.

It’s just Monday.

The hot water still needs to …

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Modern homes are bu…

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One of thing I learned spending those long summer days visiting Grandma’s house, the house we now call home, is that not all open windows are created equal.

It’s possible to throw open every window in the house and still feel…nothing. The air sits. The curtains hang still. Everything remains exactly as it was, just with more heat and light coming in.

But …

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I love this time of spring!

At night here on the farm when the windows are open, we’re treated to a nighttime choir of spring peepers letting us know how much they enjoyed a rainfall. I listen intently, hoping to catch the call of the first whippoorwill of the season, and just the other night my patience was rewarded.

But a few nights ago we had another …

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Living in a mid-century farmhouse means lots of natural light streaming in the windows found on every side of the house. It’s a design made for drawing cross-breezes in the days before air conditioning. Ventilation wasn’t a luxury; it was how to survive a hot, muggy Missouri summer.

And so, every spring, almost without conscious thought, I start opening …

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A few weeks ago our washing machine finally gave up.

It had been acting wonky for a while, with the sensors periodically filling and draining at the same time. We wondered how much longer it would keep going — until one day it was done.

No amount of unplugging, hitting cancel, or restarting made the slightest difference. A call to the repairman quickly co…

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There are things in my life I cannot fix.

Earlier this week I pulled one of my favorite shirts out of the dryer and —Dag Nabbit! — discovered an unexpected stain on the sleeve.

Then I remembered splooshing coffee on the sleeve of my black cardigan sweater. I was busy zooming around and didn’t think about it soaking through to the light colored shirt I …

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Working through this Lint-y season and arriving here at the last Wednesday before the beginning of Holy Week, I’m reminded that there are some things that don’t go in the regular wash.

They’re marked clearly: Hand wash only. Do not wring. Do not twist.

Because they require different handling, we slow down, fill the basin and add a little soap. It’s a gent…

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After spending the last couple of weeks writing about my adventure behind my dryer (do I live an exciting life or what?), I’ve been thinking about cleaning, especially since the season is officially turning to spring.

When I know someone is coming over, I clean differently. Who cares about lint and a stuffed dryer vent?! Company means it’s time keep up…

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