Before the angels appeared to the shepherds on the hillside, there had been 400 years of silence. Between the pages of the Old Testament, and the New—a mere second for us to flip—lived a people waiting in anticipation of their Messiah. In those four hundred years, there had been no new word from God, no […]
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For many of us, fall ushers in a new kind of busy. We are finding our new rhythms for the school year. Extracurricular activities are starting up again. Seasonal holiday activities are on our minds. Home and garden projects demand our attention. And all of it crowds around our regular, daily to-do’s. We might miss […]
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This summer, my husband scoped out his family’s farm in Michigan for interesting rocks. Combing through the fields and woods on his family’s land, he discovered several rocks of interest, carting them up to the house in a wheelbarrow. I’m not sure how he sees the potential in these drab stones. I look over the […]
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One bright Tuesday as I walked my dog around our condo complex, I spotted a dad with his two young sons. In front of his open garage, he set out a shiny green bike for his preschooler and a red tricycle for his toddler. In the middle of their street, he had set up an […]
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Last week, a package came for me. Inside was a new Bible and a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. I could hardly wait to open both of them! It used to be that I would have categorized one of the items as sacred and the other as secular, and although I would argue that the Bible […]
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“Play with me, mommy!” I hear this a lot, and I bet you do too. Right after the earnest request, one of my boys will lead me by the hand toward their block tower, or superhero capes, or plastic doctor playset. In recent years, I’ve battled more than my share of beyblades, lost many Nerf […]
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“Dear God, please make him sleep!” I’ve lost count of the number of times I uttered this prayer in the early years of parenting. During nap time, in the middle of the night, my voice sighing with exhaustion, cracked with desperation. Instead of a dedicated time in which to pray everyday—what I used to do […]
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Waiting is a muscle that you practice using at an early age. Counting down the days till Christmas, waiting for your next birthday, waiting your turn, waiting for the weekend. It’s excruciating—feeling that eager anticipation of a reality not yet realized and having no power to speed up the process! Childhood is just the training […]
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When the moms in our book club read and discussed Where the Crawdads Sing*, I had to laugh because we envied the main character instead of pitied her. In the story (don’t worry: no spoilers), Kya survives alone in the marshes of North Carolina. Her contact with people is limited and her only friends are […]
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My morning routine was interrupted last month when we packed up the kids and the dogs and drove to Joshua Tree. We booked three nights in a charming desert bungalow expertly decorated in bohemian-hipster-chic style. As I walked through the house and marveled at all the decorative touches—geodes, antlers, dreamcatchers—I noticed that the tiny kitchen […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 