The Cookies & Canvas Approach to Comparison - Look Up Sometimes

The Cookies & Canvas Approach to Comparison

I don’t actually drink wine, but I participated in a Wine and Canvas event last year at 12 Corners Winery. (The owners are amazing, and their sparkling juice is phenomenal!) This fun and relaxing art entertainment event took place in the winery’s banquet room overlooking pristine vineyards. We brought nothing. We set up nothing. We just showed up. Every seat…

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We Never Lose; We Win or We Learn

We Never Lose; We Win or We Learn

Life is a lot like playing Angry Birds. We’re supposed to be actively involved in our advancing through life’s levels as we’re told to, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12) And I believe God wants us to take risks and be fearless ,even in the face of mistakes. I didn’t have enough energy to…

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Staying on Track - Look Up Sometimes

Staying on Track

Mornings at our household may or may not resemble a circus getting kids ready for school. We prep the night before, but papers teleport, shoes shrink, or clothes disappear. Someone forgets to brush their teeth or hair – or both. Murphy’s Law requires all of these things to happen on the mornings we’re most pressed for time. It was one…

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Soap & Popsicles

Soap & Popsicles

Armed with a camera, in finally gorgeous weather, I hunt beauty in our barely waking yard. Something… Anything…? I spy three dandelions and drop to my belly in the grass, possibly looking like a fool. My five-year-old daughter wants to pick them. “After I’m done taking this shot.” The shot’s a flop. But the perfect shot emerges – my daughter’s…

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When We Need Real Change - Lift Me Up

When We Need Real Change – Lift Me Up

I was in the dingy basement, bent over the dryer, wrestling with a mess of clean clothes. My mood matched the ineffectiveness of the lone light bulb ill-positioned on the wrong side of the heating duct.  Laundry, like “This is the song that never ends,” is just annoying and pointless. Condemning prisoners of war to meaningless, endless work – dig…

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When We Fail – Live in Onward

When we get stuck. When we fall and fail. When we slip and our sword slices the person we love, instead of the true enemy. We need to know to our core that our identity is neither in our victories nor our failures. Rather, it is enmeshed in the person of Jesus Christ and His unable-to-be-undone victory. There’s nothing quite…

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An Invitation to Run in the Wake of Victory

Chains of fear have restrained me from really living more often than I care to recount. Which explains the level of relief and gratitude I experienced after reading a profound explanation of the cliché story, found in 1 Samuel 17, of David and Goliath. You know: Goliath, the 9-foot tall giant, insults the God of Israel and the Israelite army…

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I’m Not Called to Be Amazing – Easter Weekend

I am somewhere between the apples and the strawberries in the produce section when it grabs hard and stops me in my tracks. My insides feel twisted. An all too familiar feeling. I grip the handle of my grocery cart with one hand and stare down at my list in the other, pretending to read but unseeing. Hope desperately no…

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2,000 Miles, 1 Painting & 3 Words by Pearl Allard (Look Up Sometimes)

Look Up Sometimes

The words are easy to miss. Stamped small over a dark ocean wave towards the bottom, there it is. Three calm, coppery words. A quiet invitation: Look up sometimes. It was a housewarming gift we received from my parents three years ago. A painting of the sea at sunset, by Seward Whitfield. A stunning shadowbox showcases real oyster shells and…

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