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I drive along an expressway nearly every day. On one side, long lines of freight trains stretch past the horizon. People have planted some trees along it but at night especially, it’s dark, barren and lonely.

On the other road shoulder, modest homes restrict the vista. The falling-down fences hold tangles of pesticide-sprayed blackberries that no one picks. At intervals, crosses and plastic flowers mark deadly car wrecks. As I cruise along at fifty-five, it’s sad, uninviting and desolate.

Sort of like how I’m feeling this week.

Like a broken roller coaster, hanging onto my widow’s life, ready to upchuck at all the twisted changes our elected leaders keep trying to implement. On this clown show ride, it’s too dangerous to close my eyes.

The government’s newest move is to rename Lake Ontario. The name comes from an indigenous Canadian tribe and has been called Ontario for at least 400 years. Lake America? So far, the idea is backfiring. Same goes for the Gulf of Mexico. These name changes show how small and petty our current leaders are.

At first, I thought, so what? Someone must need attention to so quickly change names we’ve all known for years, heck, centuries. Tomato, tomahto, ya know? But the more I thought about it, the more I became alarmed.

Could all these Executive branch changes somehow erase our collective memory? Have we already forgotten who we are?

As laughable as the new names sound, these changes are dangerous too. A name reflects identity. And when we erase names, we may also be removing history, meaning and identity too. If we forget who we are—patriots of a flawed but beautiful democratic republic—we may not be able to recover it for a long time.

In 2016 Pope Francis released a book called The Name of God is Mercy. If God is love, then all of God’s identity points to love itself. Loving kindness, compassion, empathy and mercy are who God is. I love that even when God gets mad, God does so with love and mercy.

Throughout the Old Testament God’s name is rendered as a string of consonants, YHWH, translated as I AM, loosely meaning I have always existed and I don’t depend on anything else. Later, God renamed characters from Abraham to Peter and Paul, to acknowledge their new roles and identities.

There’s nothing capricious, spiteful or profane about the names God changed. Every new moniker was about love, for love.

Fred Buechner said, “Life is terrible and beautiful.” Might we turn our thoughts away just a little from these dismal and unacceptable executive order changes and begin to fine tune our lives to name the beautiful along with the terrible? I don’t mean that we put on our rose-colored glasses and proclaim that we won. We must be both clever and innocent to resist the attempts to change us all into serfs serving the one percent.

Yet as I drive along that desolate expressway, I see God there too. At the road’s edge, little blue flax flowers, California poppies and wild sweet peas wave to me, as if to say, “Love is with you.” Those wildflowers survive on the dusty shoulder as a small priceless testament that love is still worth it.

Perhaps we need a refocus to embrace old-fashioned ideas: that welcome is better than suspicion; that tolerance is better than condemnation; that we aren’t enemies just because we disagree. We can revive our notions of neighborliness, but this time without underlying prejudice or racism. To invite truth to take up residence instead of lies. To level the playing field—even a little at a time.

Broken or not, roller coasters only run in circles. We may fear there’s no way to stop this runaway madness. But if we revisit our ideals—things we haven’t yet performed perfectly—and commit ourselves to our Founding Fathers’ principles as well as basic decency, respect and the dignity of every person, we can get closer to both our civic and our spiritual goals.

We can start with how we treat our neighbors and close communities. Then work to repair what misinformation, mistrust, social isolation and fast-paced technology has damaged. Hewing to the simple golden rule of treating others as you’d like to be treated might produce opportunities to better the human family.

I know—I’m way too idealistic. I come from the generation of peace and love. But although I’ve been disappointed that those ideals didn’t last, we can start again down the path to a representative democracy that welcomes, respects dignity and helps those at the bottom. To love one another.

Of course, love isn’t easy. As I wrote in one of my earlier books, I’m forever making Peace with a Dangerous God*. Dangerous, because to open your heart, to become vulnerable, you risk being hurt. But love really is worth it. I promise.

In the loneliest stretch of the expressway, I often slow down to take in the splendor of those blue wildflowers. They tell me that love and beauty sometimes hide under the terror of life’s worst moments. And they remind me to remember who I am: an American patriot who wants our better angels to get off the broken roller coaster and ride the peace, love and goodness train again.

• Making Peace with a Dangerous God, Revell, 2006

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My friend’s voice sounded so small, defeated in a way I’d never heard before. I knew about some of the awful, sad traumas she carries, but this time there was a tinge of inevitability I hadn’t picked up before.

The heart condition she’s had for several years is worsening. My own heart dropped when she added, “I’m probably not going to live to a very old age.” She sounded as if all her brilliant creativity and energy had been sucked into some starry black hole and replaced with doomed surrender. But the fact is, her heart might flake out at any time. She can’t trust her own body anymore.

I’m heartsick for her.

There’s this other guy that I drive past frequently. He uses a wheelchair and he seems to live on a roadside filled with sharp boulders to discourage the unhoused. But hardness of heart leads to societal sickness.

And it reminds me of how much we’re all absolutely exhausted at a time when we must do more than ever to beat back authoritarians and leaders who don’t honor the Constitution or even basic decency.

Everyone I know right now walks around looking defeated, as if a combination of recent steep rises in prices of food and gas, ICE brutality and golden statues are compounding the losses we all endure.

That makes me heartsick, too.

My heart’s bruised—by everything from losing my life partner to navigating life as a widow to feeling outraged at ICE raids and disgusted at the gilding of Washington DC. It hurts to watch that wheelchair guy living on the side of a road. When my budget barely squeaks by I feel vulnerable. And I hate that my dear friend’s heart is faulty.

These things really do make a bleeding heart out of me. I can’t seem to stop caring about others, but it’s frustrating that I can’t help every person I meet. Every day I pray for wisdom in knowing what and whom to help with my limited energy and resources. A lot of the time I feel stymied by the enormity of needs out there. And really tired.

After I spoke with my friend with the heart condition, I asked God what I can do to soften my own heart and love my neighbor. What I heard was so simple and kind, I figured it must be God, not my own ego talking.

I actually groaned—I said I’m too damn tired to do much of anything. But somehow, I got the message that even when I’m exhausted, I can still do heart work.

First, I can simply look deeply. Get into the habit of perpetual noticing. See all the creating God did to build our natural world. I mean, fractals and gigantic hot blue stars, all in the same week, God? Wow.

Notice the scent of fresh juicy peaches in August, the way two old maples brush each other’s crowns overhead, like a kiss. Linger, let my insides leap at wonder. Laugh at the four young turkeys strutting through the yard. Talk to the crow fledglings who mewl and whine for food from the adults—tell them shh it’s all right, babies.

And when the seasons change, find the bluest Indian summer sky to marvel at. The brightest array of stars to jerk the tears out of you. Celebrate that old wheelchair dude on the riprap. Perpetually notice.

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Next, notice gratitude. Even as I sorrow over my friend’s heart condition, I feel my own heart thumping out thanks. Smile at the grumpiest person in line behind you. Offer to let them go ahead. Carry in the groceries, giving thanks as if I’ve never seen a can of corn.

Be amazed that the washer washes, the stovetop boils water, that on hot days a window ac cranks out a little relief. When it’s cold and rainy, thank the pellet stove and the little hand gadget that opens the can of corn.

But I won’t be a robot about it. When I use modern appliances, I’ll pause to think about Gaza women standing in line for bread. Ukrainians trying to keep warm during brutal winters. About Haitian people with ankle bracelets who are suddenly on the deportation list.

I’ll protest when possible. Call on elected representatives to fix injustice. Vote preferences toward a more just society. And I’ll pray for compassion. Lean into Jesus’ teachings. Ego has a way of taking over—I’ll try to keep His teachings close.

If you just need a little space to do nothing, I get it—God doesn’t expect us to be perfect little saints. But if your mind alights on things you care about, notice, give thanks and ask for a more compassionate heart.

When I think of my friend and her scary prognosis, my heart really does hurt—not like hers, but with tons of loving concern. If I see the wheelchair guy, I’ll smile and wave. Notice my heart beating and give thanks. Work for justice and practice compassion while noticing creation in new ways—ways that fill me with wonder and awe and maybe even joy.

Is it possible to unbreak a heart? I don’t know, but if anything can, it’s got to be by working together with plenty of love. That’s the sort of heart work anyone can do—even if we’re falling down tired.

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A few weeks ago, two people riding tandem on an e-bike crashed into my car. The passenger side mirror flew off into the street while I jumped out, hoping I hadn’t just killed someone. The e-bike tipped over onto the sidewalk, but the riders hopped up. I screamed, “Are you OK?”

They both said yes. While I was pulling the car off the street, they left the scene. I was shaken, to put it mildly. The sheriff’s deputy said I wasn’t at fault. I was relieved and I’ve forgiven them, wherever they are.

Since that day, I’ve had trouble finding the correct replacement and even if I did, the cost is not in my budget. So, I have a cracked side mirror that no longer swivels and has the e-bike’s handgrip mark right in the middle. Although it’s unsightly, it’s not illegal, and I can sort of see behind me in it.

In the doldrums of August, a bunch of us feel like cracked mirrors.

I don’t know about you, but I seesaw from bullish about reclaiming our democracy to dreading whatever fresh hell the current occupant will unleash next. Yet in that shattered but taped together mirror, I find hope.

Hope that’s spelled l-o-v-e.

Heather Cox Richardson is my daily go-to for honest reporting with intelligent historical context. Her Letters from an American are informative as well as hopeful. She almost always includes something positive to balance out all the crap.

But she warned that this summer, things would get worse. Hoo-wee, has she been right.

With SCOTUS handing out executive authority like penny candy, the administration keeps getting bolder. They’re ignoring the rule of law and won’t take no for an answer. Whenever the court rules against these outrageous attempts to change our system, they try again.

Indy journalists report on everything from immigrant abuse to gutting the Voting Rights act to ripping away health and food benefits to the stupid Iran war debacle. But I love the way Richardson regularly asks, “What do you want your country to look like?”

The question has me gazing into that cracked mirror, thinking about the corruption and my faith life. What DO I want my life and my country to be like?

My answers surprise me. That mirror reminds me that all my life I’ve thought that my government would never be anything but stable. As a middle-class child and adopted daughter of a Barry Goldwater Republican, I hated taxes. But I forgot that taxes provide lots of things I really like: good schools, roads, protection from police and fire—you know, stuff we all depend upon.

Now that I’m a widow on a fixed income, I see what life in America could be like if taxes keep being slashed; if privatization helps oligarchs thrive while the rest of us get leftovers. I’m reminded of how our elders lived when they became too infirm to work before Social Security and Medicare—at their families’ mercy.

The bottom line is this: my political hopes are inextricably meshed with the faith I live by.

As a Jesus follower, I think of empathy as strength. I do what I can to help the poor. I welcome the stranger (immigrants) and support all people (women, men, black, brown, gay, straight, ALL) as equal on this earth. And I don’t support war, especially this one, cooked up by someone who now seems powerless to stop it.

What DO I want my country to look like?

---

The reflections of my fractured mirror instruct me to move closer to God by loving other people. If that means health care for everybody, OK. If it means funding social safety net programs, I’m in. If it means clawing back rule of law and justice for all—making the playing field a little more level, as in other developed countries, then I’ll pay more in taxes.

When I consider gilded monuments or fancy ballrooms, the mirror seems really cracked. Instead of providing food benefits, our tax dollars buy shock gloves for ICE agents. The corruption is staggering. Not to mention attempts to meddle with upcoming elections.

I want honestly elected officials. I want free and fair elections, and I want to cast my ballot with mail-in voting.

I want officials ousted if they invent reasons to declare national emergencies, hide Epstein files and start wars without congressional approval. Whether through investigations, impeachments or elections, I want my country to return to a democratic society and jettison the chaos that has diminished our standing in the world.

Those are some of the things I desire for my country. A tall order, sure. But the reason is simple: I follow the teachings of Jesus. I want these things for love’s sake. And I’ll vote accordingly, protest where necessary and tell the truth to those who’ve been brainwashed by their cloistered siloes.

What do you want America to look like? A prosperous country with controlled and regulated capitalism, so that a few don’t hog all the resources while everyone else suffers? For decency, facts and science to return? Empathy as strength? I do.

If we stopped judging and hating each other, misinformation siloes could change back into communities where we work together for the common good. Look into your own mirror, cracked or intact, and ask what you want the USA to look like going forward. I hope it starts with We the People.

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A few months ago, I took off my wedding band. It’s a simple gold band—the same as the ones my husband lost down sinks or forgot to put back on. I finally stopped insisting he replace his. I figured after three lost rings, I wasn’t going to get him to keep a fourth one.

But I never took mine off. Well, there was that one night when I was ready to walk out and I sat for three hours, miserable in a neighborhood bar. But I couldn’t go through with it. I put it back on and even through multiple surgeries kept it on my ring finger.

Until a few weeks ago. I placed it in a little box for what? Safekeeping?

I felt guilty but I did it. Why? I really don’t know, except to say I thought grieving would be easier. I hoped it might ease the grinding pain of regret. All the stuff I wanted to say but never did. All the questions I should’ve asked. The life history of someone I lived with for nearly 50 years. Too late now.

I’ve never wanted to admit how lonely life has become. In the span of almost two years, the frenetic cliffhangers of praying my husband made it through yet another crisis evaporated when he had the massive stroke. Those times have been replaced by an equally busy schedule of chauffeuring, shopping and keeping the household running. But it’s lonely out here in the hinterlands of grief.

I keep seeing his blue eyes, staring.

When I walked in the rehab room that day, we rushed him to Emergency, even though I knew what that stare meant: stroke. In the ICU the nurse lifted his right hand and my heart shattered when it thudded back to the bed. Shock zapped me and I’m sure my expression was a lot like my physical therapist the day I let my paralyzed arm fall from the exercise bar it clung to, kind of like a meteorite crashing to earth.

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His arm did that too, crashing limp and unknowing into the sheets. I remember thinking he would never want to be as crippled as I am. That’s how well I knew the man. Proud, a former Marine, he served a country he loved up until a certain president regained power in 2024.

The hospital called on our family to see his brain imaging—or what was left of it after he’d hemorrhaged overnight. The entire left side of his brain was simply gone. They tried to break the news gently—but I already knew. He’d have to pass away slowly as the kidney toxins built up and his organs shut down.

For the next six days, I sat with him as much as I could stand. By then he seemed peaceful, just sleeping. As I sat there with my heart eating itself, I twirled my gold band round and round like a talisman, as if it could wake me from this awful nightmare. I’d try to recite scripture, but most of the time I couldn’t concentrate. I tried to sing too, but my throat closed tight. So I held my Marine’s hand—the one that was now as useless as mine—and whispered my thoughts.

I told him that he could be a mean sonuvagun and half the time he drove me batshit crazy. Despite his bravery and strength, he had lousy self-esteem, thinking he was better if he made outlandish claims or outright lied about his background. All that hid the shame he lived with, all the ways he was disappointed in himself, all the love he gave to everyone except himself.

Especially me. He loved me deeply, for reasons I’ll never understand. Our backgrounds and life goals were so different. Yet there he was, unwilling to ever give up on me. At times, I couldn’t see his devotion as anything more than suffocation. But I always came back to the idea that there was just something about him.

The day he finally gave up breathing I was there with our four kids. One son barely made it in time, but he made it. To be honest, I felt practically nothing by then—exhausted, stunned, still pretending a different ending would unfold. Even at his funeral, with military honors, I didn’t cry. Came close when the Marine handed the flag to me, but somehow couldn’t shed a tear.

But recently, after losing his old bunny, something cracked open. I sobbed. And even better, poems started flowing through my head. I had to write them down before they too disappeared from my life. Writing these poems is helping me process the ugly stuff and the lonely stuff and the ways I reach out to God and neighbor to prop me up.

I’ve posted these elsewhere, but they say what my heart knows. I may have taken off my wedding band, but I’m thankful that I had at least one deep love in my life. Who knows what’s next?

And Oh, the Right Thing is Love

Sometimes you do the right thing

despite

Your time-crunched soul. Duty’s long legs

Walk swiftly over potholes of dread, like mom’s scoldings,

Her clucking refrains of

forgotten thank-yous and

petrified pizza hidden under the bed

And oh, but you did visit the Home—

OK you tried not to breathe—understandable,

and there was your old guy, shriveled now, fast asleep at noon,

dentures laid just so on the bedside table.

And oh, you worried—is this how we all end?

Not least after pureed dinner coasted in.

And oh, you wanted

to spoon-feed applesauce—he said he wasn’t hungry

But his eyes were starving.

You gently wiped away drips, your own frightened tears

And oh, isn’t that a lovely view outside?

He nods, chin dropping

To chest, dozing once more

as you kissed his forehead, despite everything—

Just doing love’s right thing.

*************************

Solo Act

I could fall backwards and smack my head

And who’d call 911?

The whole world wants to know how not to be alone.

Somewhere, sometime, I might meet someone

Who’d carry my baggage, tell me I’m still pretty,

And not care if I fart in my sleep.

I suppose—nothing’s impossible after all—

then I wouldn’t fall backward alone, worried about the rent,

dreading winter’s cold feet.

But what if this someone doesn’t smell right

Or makes my skin feel too tight and what if

Our histories clash like plaids with paisleys or checks with stripes,

What then? I’d call 911 myself and

anyway, love’s overrated at this age. Frankly, the odds are terrible.

But if I opened myself once more, if I dared to

stand naked before you, would you shrug or laugh or run?

Please don’t answer. Just let me fall, dreaming

of someone, somewhere, sometime.

*******

I loved that Marine of mine. Wedding bands don’t cure anything, but maybe they keep me tethered to love.

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My friend died. I couldn’t stand her suffering and yes, my insides ripped in two. She wasn’t your usual friend—although like me, cataracts and arthritis slowed her down.

She never complained, just kept on being her lovable self, to the very end. When I was full of fear and loathing, she quietly allowed me to vent, even nudging my hand, as if to say, it’s all right. Everything’s all right.

Bun-Bun was our eleven-year-old lop-eared rabbit.

Today, I sang her the song I’ve sung to her for all these years. She went to sleep as I stroked her tiny nose, just the way she liked.

She’s our little bunny girl; she’s the best one in the world.

OK, she was only a rabbit, a stray at that. And to be honest, she was my Marine’s bunny first and foremost. But after I said goodbye, in the midst of tears I didn’t know I had, Bun-Bun showed me the ways God sends loving protection.

“You and your animals!” one son recently said. I’ve always had a heart for critters—as long as they don’t slither or have eight legs. I’ve rescued many others—everything from lizards to rodents to cats and dogs—and cared for them. Bun-Bun was the last. And like those who came before her, she rescued me from my tendencies toward melancholy and fear.

At least eight people I loved died in the past three years. I haven’t been able to cry. Not a drop. Even as my Marine lay dying from stroke, I couldn’t find a single tear. But as I sang to that bunny, stroking her fur, the dam finally broke. I sobbed into the vet’s shoulder, and my grief sprang out all at once.

How could a rabbit undo me in ways people didn’t? Maybe it has something to do with how pets see us as gods, depending on us for everything. They may not be geniuses, but animals have deep feelings. They love us unconditionally, even if they demonstrate that love in nonhuman ways. And God works through them.

Bun-Bun never said a word, but she was a great listener. Twice a day, I went out to her pen to feed her and pour out my troubles.

She doesn’t have a lot to say, mostly eats her weeds and hay.

After unloading, I always felt so much better. Complaining to a bunny felt like prayer. I forgot to couch my worries in thees and thous and just let it all out. Best of all, Bun-Bun didn’t give advice unless she thumped her hind foot, meaning gotta run, see you next time, buh-bye.

That’s the kind of friend everybody needs.

Daily, I fed her dandelion leaves (one at a time, thank you very much). I taught her to grab tiny pieces of raisins from my palm.

Sometimes, she groomed my hand with her soft pink tongue. The gesture said everything—trust, safety, love. I wish we could all enjoy loyal friends who give themselves over to another (hopefully not by licking their hands) demonstrating that level of caring concern. And it felt like God was loving me through her.

A friend’s always there for you—who knows that sometimes, you just need to vent or have a good hard cry. I had that cry today as I sent Bun-Bun off to join all those I’ve lost: husbands, parents, friends and neighbors, and now, my sweet bunny lop.

Thankfully, our memories do miraculous things, things that assure me of God’s love. I won’t forget her soft butterscotch fur, fur I nuzzled as I kissed her goodbye. And despite the ways my husband and I disagreed for nearly fifty years, I’ll remember his crystal blue eyes and how crazy about him I was. Bun-Bun was his rabbit—she binds his memory to my broken heart.

For eleven years, I fashioned much of my life around a rescued bunny. Armed with a gazillion dandelions, I fed her, sat with her, petted her and sang to her every day. Now my loyal friend is gone.

I love her anyway. She’s my bunny girl.

Too many of us walk around with loss hanging from our necks. We keep our tears private, knowing some feel uncomfortable talking about death. Even worse, those insipid cliches can feel like a dagger: it was God’s will, he/she’s in a better place, she was only a rabbit.

I try to forgive those kinds of comments—after all, people are only people. And I recognize that as I hurt all over, folks everywhere are mourning losses. Grieving for the loss of loved ones, whether from cancer or politics. Sorrow for the cruelty our government is acting out around the world and here in the good ol’ USA. Tears for those who watch in horror as our democracy crumbles.

In times like these, we could all use a friend who listens as our fears spill out. When we have to say goodbye to loved ones who succumb too soon. When death feels cold and unending even for only a rabbit.

Yet into that cruel “only-ness” God shovels gobs of love, the assurance that death isn’t all there is. Take that love and find a new friend, adopt a rescue pet or stand on the corner to push back against injustice. I think Bun-Bun would approve, nudging us as if to say that with enough love, Everything will be all right.

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In the hottest part of our Pacific Northwest year, I love mornings. Most often, the early time feels fresh and quietly new and holy enough that I can pray just by inhaling the cool air. I walk around inspecting garden beds and flowerpots.

Fill in little squirrel-made holes and patrol for ripe pole beans. If the wrens sing or the hummers dip for their breakfasts into the crocosmia blooms, I become a child again, taking in wonder like it’s the first day of creation.

Sometimes, I’m rushed or weighted with anxious worry. How will we make it when my income isn’t nearly enough? Thanks to new SNAP rules, my live-in son no longer qualifies for food benefits, even though he works part-time. And lately, since my health has challenged me in terrifying ways, I’ve clung to my go-to phrase: Carry me through, Lord. Carry me through.

I rely on this idea to get through another day. But if God carries me, what do I insist on carrying everywhere I go? Are there things that I don’t need anymore? Could I take out the trash?

An old allegory called The Land of Far Beyond is a kind of Wizard of Oz retelling—except the children are journeying to this far-away, heaven-ish place to be rid of backpacks that have grown roots into their spines. The packs hold things such as fear, greed, shame, bitterness.

The plot’s rather melodramatic but illustrates the way we carry things through life. So many times, we don’t even realize they’re weighing us down—they’ve become deeply ingrained like those rooted backpacks.

And like some of our burdens, the packs can’t be removed without great pain. The children try to help one another take off the burdens, but after trying different ways to pull the packs off, they discover that actual tentacles have grown from the packs into their flesh.

Sounds way too much like the ways I cling to things I’ve carried.

For instance, I’m constantly shouldering my tendency to think of myself as less than, as damaged goods, as nearly normal, but not good enough. The straps dig into me; a lifetime of disability has somehow made me more shamed, more fearful that someone—anyone—will see my paralyzed arm and shun me.

If I dwell there too long, I start thinking about my limitations: I’d never win a beauty contest--I’m physical deformed. I wish I’d mastered an instrument, especially piano. And no, one-handed playing wouldn’t suffice. At one time, I wanted to become an actress, but I’d never be cast. Some days, that rabbit hole gets pretty deep.

I obsess about what I don’t have, what I will never be, a million regrets and OMG I spotted some new wrinkles. Is that black hair on my chin and white hair on my head? Where did my waist go?

Those are my actual preoccupations some mornings—how friends and acquaintances would gasp if they ever watched one-handed me button a shirt or go crazy with a separating zipper. I’ve even wondered if God stifles chuckles as high-school me tried to look “normal,” as I self-consciously wore long-sleeves in 110-degree Phoenix weather. All to cover up what I thought made me unacceptable.

I’m carrying a lot of BS, aren’t I? And yes, God does carry me. But now and then I hear, “EEWW. What’s that smell?”

If I’m honest, I say that odor comes from everything I insist on bringing everywhere. The thirty-year-old slight from someone who thought I didn’t deserve a handicap parking sticker? Still festering. The time I quit a job before I could be fired. Yep, still butthurt. I carry all the disappointment, resentment and loss. And up until now, have never realized that God has to carry me plus all my complaints and things left unresolved or unforgiven.

My grown kids mostly don’t care about inheriting my enormous book collection, my grandmother’s Apple-patterned Franciscan ware or her crystal stemware, but God doesn’t grouse about the extra weight. Unlike me when those kids were teens, God’s also not bossy about checking my backpack for contraband and lets me figure out how heavy and damaging that shit is all by myself.

Yes, I’m carried through, but I still pay the toll at the weigh station. That toll is a packet of seeds that’s like sea monkeys in water: all the crap just keeps growing. And before you know it, the seeds grow into tentacles that make putting down the pack painful, messy and stinking to high heaven.

The Land of Far Beyond children finally arrive at a shining palace and meet a God who disengages those tentacled packs with love. Freed from the sins that weighed them down, they rejoice with Jesus. In life, that’s rather simplistic, but the pain of not letting go is very real.

What backpack full of smelly stuff do you carry? Our troubles are different, but the antidote’s the same: love. Love of neighbor, love of self. Love that proves God’s yoke is easy when you let go.

In the still sacred morning air, the wren sings to me, a prayer for the love that swirls all around me. Carefully, painfully, I lay my burdens at God’s feet. The sun breaks through morning overcast and I’m so much, well, lighter. Tomorrow, I’ll probably have to throw it all off again. But love, like hummingbirds on crocosmia, feeds not upon perfection, but on every open heart.

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Every day the same two older ladies stand on a downtown corner. They wear sun hats and dress like old hippies. They protest the awful stuff our government is doing. Whether it’s Abolish ICE or a reminder that we don’t have kings here, these intrepid women show up, rain or shine.

To me, they’re some of the most courageous people anywhere. And it’s getting more and more dangerous to show courage. How do we find the strength to bravely stand against injustice and the trampling of our rights?

I’ve written a lot about how unhappy I am with the various ways the federal government is ruining democracy and picking on people who aren’t doing criminal things. In the past few days, the ICE men cameth and killed again.

My first reaction (besides the sound of my heart breaking) was oh no here we go again. Then, like a lot of us these days, I was furious. How can Americans shoot at people they perceive to be noncitizens? But have I joined those women? I’m a cowardly lioness.

To stand with a Eff ICE sign takes more and more chutzpah, aka courage. I mean, a person could get killed for exercising their constitutional rights.

Courage is also necessary after a devasting medical diagnosis. One mom’s now-fifteen-year-old daughter received a heart transplant at age two. Since then, she’s been battling cancer. Every test and procedure leaves her feeling like crap. But in her cheery devotion to Jesus, she sings praise songs from her hospital bed.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

She knows she may die sooner than later, but she doesn’t blame God for her precarious condition. She leans on her faith to carry her through her terrible situation.

That’s real courage.

In the Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion lacked courage. Scripture tells us to be courageous. As He walked on water, Jesus even calmed down the freaked-out fishermen by reminding them to have courage. Sounds easy until you’re faced with calamity. A lot of the time, I’m lily-livered too.

When a beloved spouse passes away, when a child succumbs to disease or overdose, when we’re staring down a job loss or when our identity—LGBTQ, immigrant, person of color—is suspect, is there a yellow brick road to being brave?

If there is, I’ve been looking for it most of my life.

I’ve stayed quiet when someone needed reassurance. I’ve been sarcastic when my kids with addiction needed someone to see past their problems. I’ve settled for status quo when my needs were overlooked in relationships. If Jesus came walking on water, I’d probably say don’t rock the boat.

But when I embraced a faith path of learning to love as God loves, I began to change. For all my cowardice, learning to love others as myself has led to bravery in challenging circumstances.

Courage may result from duty or honor. But in standing for such egregious social injustice, love turns to passionate courage and leads to action.

Still, real courage doesn’t always appear until there’s imminent danger. We may think we know how we’ll respond to a bad diagnosis, a marriage breakup or terrible politics. But until we’re faced with disasters, most of us prefer to keep things steady.

Women in our culture are taught to be nice rather than honest. And even when we must either speak up or miss another chance to be brave, it’s tempting to remain silent, to look away, to pretend it’s somebody else’s job to stand up for what’s right.

When you see every situation as a chance to love your neighbor as yourself, the heart sparks passion. We find safety in numbers. Joining a cause feels important. Us vs. Them dissolves into We. And We is stronger and braver than just me.

I lived through social upheaval in the late 60s and early 70s. I wish I’d kept my protest signs—I wouldn’t even have to update much. Back then, black people and sympathizers were fire-hosed and murdered. Vietnam was a forever war no one wanted. Plus, the president said anti-war folks were bad for wanting peace and equal rights for everybody.

Now a similar situation seems to get worse by the minute. Courageous people might be our only hope.

The most honest courage springs up from deeply held principles. If you really believe in our country’s founding ideas—that we should all have equal protection under the law; that injustice for some is injustice for all—then now is the time to expand those ideals into courageous action.

I believe that welcoming strangers, helping those less fortunate, even loving those with opposite political stripes are ideals vital to a diverse and thriving democracy.

All of this kind of loving courage arises from how we treat others. For democracy to work, we must reject the idea that some of us are better than others and instead be passionate that we’re all equals. The courage to believe we’re all being carried by a loving God helps make us more tolerant and loving, even in the face of great injustice or loss.

Find your passion and stand up for the marginalized. It’ll take great courage but do it anyway. This cowardly lioness is getting out of the boat to roar alongside those two ladies in sunhats. I hope love somehow leads you from passion to courage to action too.

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Photo by Austin Schmid on Unsplash

Like a lot of us, I’m angry. Fed up. Ready to explode. Furious at our government leaders. Plus, my dryer went kaput and my face is still bruised from my brilliant faceplant a few weeks ago.

Oh goody. Rejoice in the Lord always, right? Joy. Joy. Joy.

I’m trying. Really. But for me anyway, joy has morning breath.

My road from despair to joy might surprise you. If God wants me joyous, I can’t fake it. For joy to blossom in me, it needs to be worthy joy.

I don’t blame folks for wanting relief. All the grift and corruption amounts to trauma. But when I’m suffering, the last thing I want is some sunny, joyful pep talk. Be grateful. Look on the bright side. Blech. The intentions may be good, but to me, it’s less-than-authentic.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s good to be optimistic. I love being in nature, beholding the awesome creation that God thought up. I’ve had times when I’d do just about anything to stop being miserable—ask me about my miracle handkerchief from a TV evangelist.

What I don’t love is shallow joy that masks misery. The first step toward joy must be making sure anger doesn’t turn into bitterness. Judgment leads to anger and whoops, bitter resentment. If you let it.

As a kid, after being teased at school, I never told anyone I was ashamed of my disability. How could I admit my terror around playing Red Rover, when somebody could literally tear my skinny, paralyzed arm right off? Or when Grammie suggested I become a company model—they’d only show me from the neck up. I did have nice hair, but still. That trauma has lasted for years.

I translated these things as: you’re ugly, deformed, unworthy. All the smiling in the world couldn’t make me grateful for that. Or joyous.

And for decades, angry fear was my shield. Trauma feeds off negative emotions. But somehow, as a nine-year-old in that crippled children’s hospital, helping others changed my bitter tears to real joy. Now I long to rediscover the same joy.

In that hospital, I kept a little white bible under my pillow. Some nights I gripped it hard to keep from screaming. After surgery, when my left arm’s fingers swelled like purple sausages, that zippered KJV whispered that I wasn’t alone.

In that hospital on Christmas, God was there too, waiting for my least courageous moments. I somehow groped my way to the Presence I was sure came from heaven. God didn’t mind hearing about everything that hurt. My trauma began to transform as God’s love kept my hope alive. And that hope led to joy.

I found joy as the only kid in the ward who could walk around. I fetched bedpans and held barf pans for girls who couldn’t hold even a pencil.

On Christmas, when a girl with cerebral palsy cried and cried, I stole Baby Jesus out of the creche to comfort her. I got scolded for creche theft, but I experienced true joy, knowing the crying girl clutched Jesus like he was her only hope—hope that helped heal my own trauma.

Helping others gives me deep joy today, too. Crappy stuff still happens—exhibit A is my recent faceplant on concrete. But somehow, invisible hands of light hold mine and my face shines with joy. God’s joy.

You can’t catch it or put it in a jar. When life makes me mad, when fear grips me as I go about my days, I leap into God’s arms with my rage and my terror. Joy always appears at the exact moment when I can’t go on.

Although my childhood surgeries were painful, the look on my friend’s face redeemed my anger and hurt as she grasped baby Jesus with her twisted, palsied fingers. Reaching for real joy reminds me to remember that and act to bring that joy forward.

I commend those who are scared but then do hard things anyway. Yet many of us live as if our pain must remain private. Buck up, never let ‘em see you cry. Fake happiness til you make it. You got this.

Cliches might make you seem like a badass. And it’s true that today we need a lot of both anger and bravery to withstand the onslaught of the big fat messes. Trauma invites fearful rage to set up shop in us.

But joy waits on the sidelines, ready to inject big, fat love into our lives.

We don’t have to prove to God that we can endure anything without breaking. We can bring our whole selves—anger and grief—all our crap. Faking it doesn’t allow that kind of honesty.

Authentic joy emanates from the deepest recesses of the heart. It’s hard-fought, hard-won and tough as nails. This kind of joy weathers disease and calamity—even death. My greatest joys have come from great disappointments, losses and grief.

It’s been a lousy stretch, the sort that makes you mad. But go ahead, reach down deep and feel for something to hope for. When honest-to-goodness joy finally finds you, it’ll have bedhead and bad breath and be covered in mud.

Embrace that joy and watch your trauma heal, bit by bit. Our times may be depressing and even dangerous, but you may discover that true joy comes with loving hands that reach for you.

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Many of us are so tired we’d rather watch paint dry than do anything constructive this weekend. Or maybe I’m just grumpy. When it comes to the Fourth of July, I’ve been disenchanted, disillusioned and dissed.

I’ve thought too hard about the messes we’re in as a country, how so much has changed since I watched a handsome young president ask not what your country could do for you. A lot of us grow wistful about the days of Camelot, pink pillbox hats and rose gardens.

But then we tune in to the 2026 red, white and blue celebrations and only see orange. Or algae green.

Maybe nostalgia will have to stand in for a Fourth gone off the rails.

July Fourth was always a big deal for my family. It was Dad’s birthday—he was sure all the fireworks were for him. When we lived down in Yuma, I hung out with the neighbors’ kids, Bobby and Peterbone. Both got short haircuts for sizzling Yuma summers.

They had about a thousand extended family members and every one of them spoke Spanish. Their mom, Chu-chi, invited her brother, Julio, a big, barrel-chested guy with slicked black hair and a booming laugh. He swilled tequila while doing magic tricks for us kids.

One year, after he was tipsy, he dared the boys not to cry or run if he lit their hair on fire. I’m not making this up, and I’m not sure why those kids thought it necessary to prove their machismo to a drunk uncle. They did make sure the garden hose was running.

You never forget the smell of burning hair.

Smoke curling up from their heads, Uncle Julio struck several matches before the hair ignited. Bobby stood there acting tough, his black eyes narrowed. Peterbone seemed ready to cry as Julio struck match after match.

The fire caught.

Peterbone made sounds like a wounded cat. Chu-chi ran over and doused her kids, clucking and scolding her brother. Julio just laughed, his big belly jiggling. I sprinted home in case Uncle Julio wanted to light me up too.

The next year, we moved up to Phoenix—in more ways than one. The new house had an in-ground pool with a crazy-tall pink water slide. On the fourth of July we’d climb from the top of the slide onto the white quartz roof and watch distant fireworks. I loved those years except for the time I ate too much watermelon and broke out in hives.

But by the time I was almost eighteen, Nixon was president. No more Camelot. Now the news was all about the Vietnam war. When I was just starting college, the draft was on most young people’s minds. My hippie musician boyfriend and I held our breath as draft lottery numbers were announced on national television.

Everyone knew that the lower your number, the greater the odds of being killed over in Southeast Asia. Some of our friends had already left for Canada or burned their draft cards. We breathed a sigh of relief when his number came up: 275.

But by 1976, we partied on the 200th Fourth like patriots. For all the talk of leaving, we loved our country. I still do, as evidenced by my long-lasting marriage to a decorated Marine.

From wild Mexican family bashes to feting Dad on his birthday, I’d always thought of America’s birthday as a joyous time, not least because in those days people in Arizona set off big-boom fireworks from Mexico. I went to high school with a set of twins whose freckled faces were permanently scarred with little green dots after a faulty firework exploded prematurely.

Now that I’m on the far side of fifty, I loathe loud fireworks. They scare the pants off animals and yours truly. Plus, up here in the Pacific Northwest, you can’t get a decent watermelon until August. What’s a Fourth without good watermelon?

Unfortunately, this year it feels like all the air has leaked out of the party balloons. We’re divided politically, and I’m sorry, cage fighting matches are just not my cuppa.

People are struggling to get by, with gas and groceries and rents climbing relentlessly, while trillionaires and billionaires and those at the top enjoy their fortunes. For well-heeled folks who’ve never entered a grocery store, it might be hard to understand how it feels to wait in a food box line.

Still. The divide doesn’t have to remain a yawning chasm. You and me and all who work hard to feed our families—who still believe in the American experiment—can stand up on this 250^th birthday. We have just as much right to be patriots as anyone in America.

No matter how wrong our leaders are or how corrupt or short-sighted, our Constitution gives us the right to vote for how we want to live. Whether it’s your birthday like my dad, or you throw bashes with a crazy uncle, celebrate America. Maybe not as it is now, but as we hope it will be. Vote in elections, call your elected leaders, fly a flag. Because America is us. We the people. Keep working to reignite the American dream.

Light a sparkler, but not your nephew’s hair. And if you know where to score a great watermelon, let me know. Happy 250^th Fourth of July, to all us patriots.

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Photo by Bryan Landry on Unsplash

First, I’d like to welcome new subscribers! I’m so glad you’re here. And if you want more ways to see how God carries you, my new book,Carry Me Through: 90 Devotions for When You Can’t Go On is available wherever books are sold. QR code for Amazon.

That afternoon, I couldn’t walk fast enough to escape my life. Every awful area in every corner of my days screamed doom. I wasn’t exactly crying, but my voice hitched as I pled. “You have to be real. Please be real. You have to be real.”

I was talking about God.

My grown kids’ addictions crashed over me like a cruel tsunami. My mom treated me as a servant instead of a caregiver. My husband was hospitalized again.

At his bedside, doctors weren’t sure he’d pull through this time. I’d stashed my husband’s Zippo lighter in my pocket for safekeeping—a relic from his time in the Marines. It made a chunk whenever he flipped back the top. I loved that sound.

I went out walking to escape, but trouble followed me. The government was falling apart. I was anxious about losing democracy as laws and settled rules were reversed. Plus, my list of personal failures was so long: Enabler. Codependent. Doormat. Cripple. I couldn’t see a single ray of hope. But if I stood still, I’d give up.

No answer from above. I walked faster.

But then the strangest thing came over me. I sank down to the curb. An iridescent red damselfly hovered near my cheek, as if it was trying to whisper something. Without even knowing it, I exhaled. My fists loosened. Energy ricocheted from my head to my feet. And one thought flashed like a neon sign: I’ll carry you through.

I jumped up and kept going, spooked, as if aliens had landed.

I was skeptical—carry me? Where? Through what? I wanted all those shitty problems to go-the-hell away, not some vague promise to be shouldered like a sack of potatoes. And who’s doing the carrying anyway?

Up to that point, most of my prayers were about miraculous liftings of all the crap I’d ever faced. God was transactional—I’d be very, very good in exchange for smooth sailing in life. If the sailing grew treacherous, I blamed my lack of faith or concluded that God was on vacation.

Santa Claus God was so frustrating—I simply didn’t get the wishes I thought I deserved. And this God was fickle—doling out BFD miracles to everyone but me. What a ripoff. My lizard brain said, No wonder people become atheists.

I kept walking. As that same spooky warmth poured over me, a giant red cedar on my route smiled, its boughs alive with twittering birds, squirrels and a soft breeze. Why did I feel so much lighter? Could something really be carrying me?

Back at home, trouble still blanketed the house. Every room hissed, you’re a loser, baby. Cold laughter bared its teeth and threatened to swallow me whole.

One son ranted incoherently, flecks of spittle foaming at the corners of his lips. The other two stood out in the garage blackout drinking while their dad was in the hospital trying to stay alive from kidney failure and heart disease.

If God wasn’t real, I’d go it alone. I was ready to call 911—I couldn’t allow violence. It never worked but usually, I shouted myself hoarse to get them to see how hurtful their behavior was. And they knew it.

But this time was different. I didn’t yell or lecture. I calmly said if there was violence, there’d be a visit from the police.I told my sons I loved them and retreated to my room.

Evening slid into twilight. Shades of lilac and deep purple tinted the walls; outside a sliver of moon rose. I sat on my bed repeating Our Father, still shaking. No miracle.

My drama probably isn’t anything like your drama. Or maybe you do have similar situations. Maybe it’s your parents or spouse or the government that gets you going. You pray for relief, but your miracle is late too.

And if you’re honest, maybe you too sometimes doubt if heaven and angels and the Good Lord are real or just a story. Nobody can prove it one way or the other.

But the heart knows.

Hearts recognize real love. Even when hope’s extinguished, love can revive hope. When hope for a better tomorrow fizzles out, love stubbornly refuses to quit. You don’t always recognize it at first.

But love resurrects hope, and if you keep going, hope helps you see how God does indeed carry us through every terrible thing. Not over or around (my preference), but straight through all the ugliness.

And on the other side of awful, you’re astonished that you made it.

Sometimes you don’t see God doing the heavy lifting until long after crises have passed. You look back and wonder where you got all that strength, all that toughness. And if you take a walk and listen to old redwood wisdom, a fleeting warmth may come, whispering that love is carrying you through this too.

My husband made it through that crisis, and since then my sons have made amazing progress. I blame it on God’s love, the way all our hopes were brought back to life by love for each other.

That night, in the purplish gloom, I flicked that Zippo, chunk. Hope lit up. That’s as real as it gets.

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Photo by Szilvia Basso on Unsplash

A father can be your best friend. He can teach you to make good choices or pass along his skills and expertise; teach you how to think for yourself and grow up to be a decent adult. At best, dads become your ideal picture of God.

Not every father, though.

Some fathers ruin you, some without meaning to, others cruel or self-centered or just so broken that love feels impossible.

Most of us get dads somewhere in-between.

I was lucky enough to have two dads. Dad “A” adopted me when I was four years old. He often scared me and I disliked his strictness. “B” Dad, my biological father, I met at age forty-five. Until then, I had no idea who he was.

“A” Dad raised me and my half-sister with a stern authority. He was a mensa-high-IQ, talented visual artist—he even built our furniture. Although he seemed skilled at everything, he was a Barry Goldwater conservative.

All through my youth, we clashed over politics and any controversy du jour. By the time I left home for college, we agreed to disagree about everything from the Vietnam War to my choosing a long-haired hippie musician to marry. “A” Dad was a jealous, stubborn man, who correctly predicted the hippie musician marriage wouldn’t last. I longed for his approval.

And for decades, I longed to know who my bio father was, but no one would tell me anything. Trouble was, I remembered when A-Dad and Mom had gone to Las Vegas to marry and they brought me a wind-up bear that played a drum.

The adoption was sealed and kept me from knowing anything except B-Dad’s name. Plus, Mom would run crying from the room. Since Mom was also adopted, my school family tree projects all resulted in a stunted bush. I was desperate to know B-Dad. But A-Dad forbade me to search for him. Jealousy? Protective? I don’t know.

Maybe we all long to know our fathers, our Father. To learn our Father’s truth and if need be, let it strengthen us to make good choices in life.

Without a father—physical or spiritual—you miss out on all things Dad. If you don’t have a dad or you’re estranged, you don’t get to give him ugly ties or aftershave. You won’t hear dad jokes or have him pull a quarter out of your ear. The same question burns through us all: am I enough, am I worthy, am I loved?

Why do we want to know where and who we come from?

That old cliché about a God-shaped empty hole in each of us takes on even more significance if you’ve been denied answers about your earthly dad. If your earthly father wasn’t a trustworthy soul, you might not think God is trustworthy. If love was withheld, if your old man is or was an abuser of any kind, why would you trust that Invisible Dude in the Sky? It’s hard to shrug off the curse of becoming a chip off the old block.

Hard, but not impossible. Losing bitterness and resentment from bad parenting takes time and effort. And choices.

If after all your hard knocks from Dad, you think God is meanspirited too, I guess you’re entitled. If Dad was a stingy old mother, and now you’re stingy too, I can’t blame you.

But there’s another way to be.

Right now, society is tearing itself apart with hate and suspicion and a lot of bad words toward others. But as former first lady Michelle Obama said this week at the opening of the Obama Center in Chicago, “Being a decent person is a choice.”

For all my teen angst, I forgave A-Dad. And although B-Dad had flaws too, I’m happy to have known him as long as I did. Those choices give me a heart less weighed down by their imperfections and boosted by love and hope for those in my life now.

The Deep End

Deep Dives in Faith

By Linda S Clare

My late husband had serial abusive fathers. He could have become just as cruel as those men. But as our children grew, whenever he faced unemployment, he’d sell his prized possessions to provide. He wasn’t perfect, but even though he didn’t really have a father, he grew into one that the children and I could love. He chose hope and love over his lesser angels, and we’re a closer family because of his sacrifices.

A-Dad died at age fifty-nine. And B-Dad? I got Mom’s blessing to search for bio dad. At the dawn of the internet, a common name like his seemed impossible to locate, so I wrote to the Social Security Administration and asked them, if he was still alive, to forward a letter.

A few weeks later, B-Dad chose to visit. We stood in my kitchen, comparing how our toes are shaped exactly alike. God answered my yearning with thirty more years of connection, halted only when he died just short of his ninety-fourth birthday.

I’ll miss all three this Father’s Day: my husband, A-Dad and B-Dad too. I’ll celebrate with my son who’s a dad to honor my Marine. I’ll remember how B-Dad and I both loved orange Crush and Fritos. And I’ll cherish the kiss I planted on A-Dad’s cheek as he gave me in marriage to that long-haired hippie musician.

I hope your Father’s Day is full of peace and love and hope. Because, as Mrs. Obama so eloquently said, “Hope is a choice too.”

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Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

The way my son tells it, the homeless man at the cafe looked really hungry. Dirty and disheveled, he reeked the way people do when they’ve had to wash up in a gas station bathroom. Employees and patrons of the cafe scolded my kid for buying the man a meal. “Don’t encourage him. He’ll just keep coming back.”

Others saw the man as an inconvenience, someone who’d keep trying to bleed generosity dry. But what society calls weakness; others call a heart that hears the cries of the least of these.

Thank God, my son ignored them.

He works part-time in a restaurant. Battling severe anxiety and depression, I’m proud of him for getting back into work and society. He rejects my faith, often teasing me with sarcastic barbs about Christianity. Certain evangelical fundamentalists make us all look bad. But although he says he’s not interested in religion, his dishwasher job gives him opportunities to be as Christian as anyone I know.

Dish pit work is fast-paced and physical. Son pays into our household budget from his minimum-wage earnings. This week he didn’t contribute as much. I was irritated until I learned the reason why.

He’d done it again.

He’d given cash to a co-worker facing eviction. Was the employee being honest? Maybe he needed a bottle of Mad Dog. But maybe he was desperate for a miracle.

I hear the story often— “if you offer cash they (the unhoused on the corners) will just go buy booze or drugs.” For some that’s probably true—if going without a drink or your drug-of-choice makes you sick, you’ll do anything to keep that sickness away.

But if some will use your hard-earned money to self-medicate, what about the one who’s really hungry? Jesus said give to whomever asks you, not if they deserve it. My son couldn’t ignore the cry of his heart.

After work, he also distributes the restaurant’s surplus bread to anybody who wants it. My son drinks too much, but he also has a heart that can’t bypass people in need. The philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “The heart has its reason which the mind knows not.”

His behavior makes me examine my own attitudes toward helping.

I was raised in a conservative yet minimally religious home—we went to church on Easter. The rest of the year my folks donned bikinis (it was Phoenix) and did weekend yard work. I was the bleeding heart of the family.

Whenever I tried to help someone, Mom said, “The poor we will always have with us.” That scripture in Matthew 26:11, taken way out of context, justified my parents’ get ahead mentality. I understand their view—they were products of the Great Depression. But I could never square their stance with the pleadings of my own heart.

I’ve taught my children to be generous, a trait that often feels as if it’s on life support these days. Until, that is, you start to look around.

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With high gas and food prices, cruelty by immigration authorities and ongoing war, one would think folks would be hoarding what little they have. Instead, these obstacles are reviving community. In Minnesota and elsewhere, neighbors join neighbors to protect brown-skinned ICE targets.

ME is giving way to WE.

God’s economics work if our hearts soften and grow deeper.

Everywhere I look, hearts are making room for giving. Love shows us that helping doesn’t equal scarcity. Somehow the mystery of God keeps the lamp oil replenished no matter how much you give away.

The more we allow ourselves to love one another, the more abundance overrules scarcity. Our hearts stretch to include others as we discover that by working together, fewer of us are left behind.

Many non-Christians are returning to neighborliness instead of the automatic fear that others mean us harm. The Good Samaritan parable not only teaches us to help those in distress. It’s also about attending to your worst enemy—in many cases, someone whose race, culture, politics or ethic group is different from yours.

If those who reject Christianity embrace generosity, we who follow Jesus can be generous too.

The rumblings of neighborliness keep growing louder and more insistent. Even as daily calamities terrorize, love’s stubborn call pulls us toward reclaiming sacred community, help for the least of these and practicing abundance.

All this sounds pretty Pollyanna-ish. But people who, like my son, reject religion are clamoring for a reset. Whether it’s a bit of cash to help pay the rent or the gift of day-old bread, hearts are awakening. Even prominent secular figures are calling for us to be kinder and gentler to one another. Just like Jesus said.

My kid is accidentally living the gospel. I hope it’s contagious.

Sure—somebody always suspects the worst and someone else always tries to take advantage. Human nature practically guarantees it.

But love is stronger.

Those whose hearts still burn for love are demonstrating radical community. And the ranks of those with open palms rather than closed fists are growing. Maybe God invented circles so that we might receive what we need and give others what they need too.

My son shares his gift of generosity. Generous love changes the world.

Whatever your gift, give it away. Like the surplus loaves my son distributes, let your gift be made of love. Your heart will grow softer and who knows—you may even meet the God of love down there in the deep end of your heart.

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Photo by Gary Fultz on Unsplash

It was a single Roma tomato, sort of a puny one. I’d chosen it in case we made tacos for dinner, placing it in its own little produce bag. The store was crowded, so I checked out at a self-serve station.

That’s when the trouble began.

The self-checkout has this annoying female voice that wants to explain each step in the process—even if you’ve done it a thousand times: Scan item, place in the bagging area, scan next item, ad nauseam. Except that this poor little tomato had no bar code sticker. Apparently, Scanner Lady didn’t know what to do with an unmarked item.

I stared at the screen, wondering how I could get the machine to recognize my item. After a few frustrating moments, I set the bag in the bagging area and scanned next item. Just like she’d told me.

But the whole thing lit up and declared that “help is on the way.” Help? I hadn’t asked for help, although I certainly needed it. The ice cream sat melting as I waited.

A nice young red-haired guy with a red vest appeared. He pushed some buttons, and to my horror, a video played, showing me clearly trying to steal that Roma.

I began shaking all over.

See, I have trauma related to a different, uh, mistake.

A few years ago, I’d exited a different store, pushing my cart to my car. A different young man chased me down and accused me of stealing a two-liter soda bottle sitting on the bottom of the cart.

I offered to pay. I said I’d forgotten the root beer and the cashier hadn’t noticed either. But this pimply kid said in his sternest voice, “Ma’am, you’ll have to follow me.”

He led me upstairs to a dingy office, grilled me as if I was Al Capone and threatened to call the police. Did I mention that the soda cost seventy-nine cents plus deposit? Then the big boss arrived. By now I was close to sobbing as I offered again to pay. The manager smiled. “You’re free to go, ma’am.”

I stammered, “What about the seventy-nine cents?”

The manager may have glared at Loss Prevention guy. “It’s on us.”

I walked away, assuring God that I hadn’t meant to steal. Was I more irked about the root beer or the fact that he called me ma’am? Anyone could see I was a miss.

I left the store chock-full of righteous indignation. How dare that kid accuse me of shoplifting? I didn’t need to steal. But it made me think of people who don’t have seventy-nine cents to their name.

I know—shoplifting raises prices for all of us. Thou shalt not steal is pretty high on the commandments list. Yet it does seem as if poverty-stricken folks might not see alternatives. Those at the bottom may rationalize that the system is screwing them, so why not screw them back? People who feel forgotten might believe they have less than nothing to lose.

Which doesn’t make shoplifting right. Most of us agree that breaking commandments is sin, mistake, a cosmic boo-boo.

But the emphasis on consequences should give us all pause. For most of my life I’ve thought of God as someone to either please or be afraid of. The angry God who waits for you to mess up can only be appeased by perfect behavior. Then, when you do sin, you’re like the First Couple and run from God.

Trying to be good is exhausting, especially when Jesus extended the commandments to include just thinking about doing wrong. Adultery extends to lust. Anger becomes contempt. Coveting gives way to entitlement. And, sometimes, stealing.

But God is merciful and by the way, madly in love with me.

What if sin isn’t about keeping us on the straight and narrow as much as molding us into behavior that helps us love more, help more, be kinder and more compassionate?

If I think about your needs as much as I think about mine, I can at least pause before I judge. If I listen before I speak and speak with humility and love, I’m less likely to sling arrows toward others. If I consider sharing before I take, I can get closer to Jesus’ commands.

Despite all these things, I’m sure to mess up. But if I’m firmly committed to walking with God (or even just committed to loving others as myself), that instinct to grab, to disdain, to always think of me, me, me might just become so saturated with love that I can begin to see you as worthy, as deserving and loveable.

And in that way, I’ll live the commandments not as oops, I did it again and more like unconditional humble regard for everyone I meet. God won’t care if I say to-may-to and you say to-maw-to, as long as we ask for forgiveness and give it away too.

The best part is feeling God’s love shower down as if I am the favorite child, which of course I am, along with you and everybody. Asking forgiveness for a stolen bit of produce helps me forgive all who’ve done me wrong—including pimply Loss Prevention guys.

If you’re doing your best but you occasionally flub it, congratulations, you’re human. That’s how real love treats sin, accidental or otherwise. God has more love than lightning bolts, more mercy than damnation. The message is always: do not sin, but when you do . . .

Fast-forward to the self-checkout station. The red-haired guy watched the little video of me accidentally pilfering a tomato. I couldn’t swallow, thinking he’d haul me upstairs to some shoplifter jail. He pushed another button and said, “Have a nice day.” And he didn’t even call me ma’am.That’s mercy.

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For the past couple of weeks, the neighborhood sparrows have launched daily cries. A cacophony in the towering fir behind us, I’ve wondered what the racket is about. Some days, chickadees join them. It all sounds like help! help! for the love of God, help!

Then one afternoon, a scrub jay emerged from that fir and sat on my fence. He looked sure he was in charge of the world, flipping his tail feathers in a middle finger gesture. No doubt he’d raided or at least bullied the smaller birds. My heart sank at the thought of him carrying off an egg or a fledgling.

When nature gets in the way of my ideals, I feel like the vegan who’s accidentally just eaten a Big Mac. Life works in some pretty cruel ways even if I’m always rooting for the underdog.

In light of the present moment, it’s like the birds are pleading: keep hoping, keep loving.

When I think about the dangerous times we’re living through—democracy on life support, loneliness at all-time highs, the threat of AI coming for our jobs—I’m inspired by the scrappy sparrows.

Scripture says those little birds are worth mere pennies, but that God cares for them too. With God’s same loving guidance, we can push for what we want our country and our world to look like. Every afternoon, the chirpy birds raise the alarm. “Incoming!” We can’t afford to do anything less.

If the scrub jay nabs a fledgling, well, they need to eat too. The sparrows will try again next season. And sometimes, the sparrows fend off their attackers. Nature’s blueprint makes everything birth, rise, fall, die. The cycle begins again.

Jays are bigger, louder, more ruthless, but sparrows outnumber them. They work together. And they never stop trying to protect their sparrow-y way of life.

Neither can we.

Maybe the best way to cultivate hope and love is by moving closer to the Presence. When even a politician like Bernie Sanders can point out that we’re all desperate for human connection, for community, gentleness, simple kindness—we who follow Jesus should hear the pleas as clearly as early morning birdsong.

If the media reports and surveys are correct, people all over the world feel a sharp loss of community. We’re lonely and exhausted by the chaos. We feel alone in the midst of upheavals—wars, corruption, tech, people too rich for the rest of us. No wonder we think we matter about as much as a sparrow amidst the peacocks and the Birds of Paradise.

While some pile up vast amounts of resources, the rest of us are ready to give up. How do you compete with those who seem to hold all the cards? Even if you protest, vote or otherwise do your civic duty, does anything you do really matter?

Yes.

Of course, habits of greed, dominance and competition always look for places to spoil the things that make us human. Like scrub jays waiting to rob a nest, evil hides in the deep dark forest of human minds.

But sparrows don’t give up either. I don’t know exactly how birds mourn their losses, but I’ll venture to guess that they do. The empty broken eggshell, the missing fledgling must make their songs a dirge, at least until next season. And then, like the rest of creation, they begin again. Even though a sparrow has no beautiful trills or vibrato-laden songs like a warbler or a wren, she chirps her heart out for all to hear.

For humans, going through our own seasons of birth and death, it’s OK to mourn, to lament, to grieve for what is lost. The gift of memory soothes our wounded hearts, at least for a moment. It’s all part of the design as long as earth survives.

After a time, though, birds and creatures and people all need to figure out how to live together. Preferably peacefully, but even in the face of chaos and catastrophe, the Author of Love invites us to link arms and walk toward heaven. To let your heart be pulled along toward love, toward hope, toward a bigger and kinder community.

Even some birds become united against a common enemy—chickadees in my yard often join in the frantic SOS with the sparrows if predators are nearby. Likewise, neighbors who only until recently smiled and waved now help each other through ICE sweeps. Against power-hungry data centers. Banding together for a better tomorrow.

If you’ve been wounded by certain church teachings, or even if you can’t say you believe at all anymore, believe in love. Believe in the ability of people to come together for a common good. Believe you can treat your neighbors as yourself.

And when scrub jays win (and you know they will sometimes), what do the little birds do? I’m not avian, but I like to think they fly into God’s protective arms. Their loved one has been lost, but they still seek comfort in the branches of love. May the sparrows remind us to keep fighting for what we hope and love.

Birdsong for your encouragement!

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I jerked awake. One-thirty-nine A.M. I reached across the bed to the other pillow. No dent where his head used to lie, no soft snore or tug on the covers. An expanse of linen stretching farther than my reach. Cold, empty.

For an instant, I’d forgotten that he’s gone.

I didn’t cry. I just nursed a hollowness that whispered: I love a lot of people, and a lot of people love me. But since he died, nobody’s in love with me.

I nearly melted into a puddle of nothing. To lose someone you love after almost fifty years hurts like phantom limb pain, a vague continual ache that you keep telling yourself isn’t really there.

At this stage of life, I’m chasing after a deeper life with God. But someone for pillow talk wouldn’t hurt either, right? In the middle of the night, grief smacked me around. Unable to sleep, I talked to myself—out loud, in case God was listening.

For one thing, Lord, there are too many dang things to mourn. Hubby, sure, my mom, dad and various other relatives who’ve passed in the last couple years. But beyond that, have you noticed that the entire country is on fire? I know, I’m not supposed to let the sun go down on my anger, but I’ve been so furious that I’ve gnashed my teeth into stubs.

God didn’t interrupt, so I cycled through stages of grief over stuff like slush funds to the tune of 1.776 BILLION, written guarantees never to audit a certain someone’s taxes and looming cuts to Medicaid and SNAP programs. I pictured God sitting there with arms crossed, nodding along like a therapist.

Besides that, I told God, I’m a great big blob of need. And grief. Hurt so keen I swear I’d rather be walking over hot coals. My country’s falling apart, the cost of living keeps devouring my fixed income and nobody sleeps next to me at night. My grandchildren keep begging me to get a cat, but then I’d be clinging to the far edge while the kitty stretched out.

See, my Marine was in love with me; I explained to the One who knows Everything. I deeply loved him too—of course I only see this now, after he’s gone. Like I said, I love and people out there love me. And sure, God you love me. So why can’t I stop these achy, lonely nights when his pillow sits cool and unwrinkled and I’m such a mess?

Don’t you hate it when God goes silent?

I was all set to pout my way to morning. But then I remembered the drab house wren I’d seen at dawn, sitting atop a fence post, singing her heart out. In the garden’s gentle breeze, peas’ delicate tendrils aimed for a line to latch onto. The yellow climbing rose perfumed the whole area, and the first strawberries blushed. Lord, I love this stuff.

God may have smiled as joy sneaked up on me. And in that moment, I was swept away.

Rowan Williams, the one-time Archbishop of Canterbury, speaks of an unmendable wound. Hurt so deep, grief and pain so indelible that nothing takes it away. Pain from losing someone, from illness or a cruel disease or from betrayal or abandonment. This kind of hurt follows you from day to day, decade to decade. Unmendable wounds leave permanent marks.

Ouch. For sure.

But Williams also says if we’re courageous enough, we can open the door of unmendable wounds.

The wounded door that’s crippling our lives swings open. The light’s too bright for mere humans but try to make sense of the brilliance. Here, God gazes back at us. Jesus beckons. Holy Spirit laughs. The invitation comes: follow.

Take a hesitant step toward love.

Here, sorrows stay with us, a total bummer. But we can’t help noticing beauty. A finch as yellow as that rose. An old man’s laughter. A toddler sweet with chocolate-covered cheeks. Appreciate what’s all around, from awe of an ancient cedar to absurdity as a dung beetle rolls its ball uphill.

Sometimes, unmendable wounds meet unspeakable joy.

Suddenly, I appreciate the miracle of my veggie garden, even the scraggily seedlings. It’s easier to laugh at the crows who sit daily in the towering maple tree and poop on my car. I may even forgive jerks who cut me off in traffic. That’s how love can lead to joy.

Turns out that unmendable wounds are only one side of the door. The other side has just as much crappy suffering, but over here love seems to swallow up pain. Love eats death for breakfast. Love doesn’t wash away hurt as much as it makes every breath more precious than the last.

Look, if I was in charge I might skip unmendable wounds altogether. Gratitude, beauty, astonishment can’t erase grief. But go ahead, love the wonders all around—you may decide it’s worth it to love even when life totally sucks.

When wounds become unmendable, remember that abundant love is on the flip side. Love that can give life real meaning, love that binds up sorrows. And if you’re lucky, unspeakable joy might jump out of the shadows and surprise you too.

At four-fifty-three AM, I finally drift off. My husband’s pillow is still empty, but God’s lullaby of love calms my fractured lonely heart. Love binds up my wounds and I sleep with peace.

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I turned my head, that’s all.

I’d done some weed-pulling, raking, things gardeners love in Oregon. A scrub jay squawked from the huge Zelkova alder in my backyard. I was drunk with springtime, armed with a trowel and hoe to vanquish the beds. I looked up. And my neck went into an intense spasm.

Bam—like a huge number of fellow citizens, I’m frozen. Demoralized. Life’s literally a pain in the neck.

And why not? It’s been a brutal week. Things are falling apart everywhere. Golden statues and Jim Crow. The mapmaker redraws reality and sews up elections in advance. Haunted by soaring prices and hantavirus fears, we claw at the air, trying to find a way to wake up from this most terrible of dreams. All we can do is dial up the Big Guy and hope all this isn’t permanent.

But God’s not answering and the voicemail box is full.

According to some, God’s busy getting things set-up for this weekend’s big wingding of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving on the National Mall.

I’m not against prayer, praise or thanksgiving. It’s just that the whole thing feels very exclusionary. Only evangelical white churches will be included, at least that’s what I hear. No black Christian churches, no mainline protestants, no Catholics, no Jews and no Muslims are invited.

Guess I’ll just go for a walk and try to keep my painful head from painfully falling off.

In spite of these disasters, giant old maples along my street make me smile every time. Two, one on my curb and the other across the street, are fully leafed out now. Their crowns seem to embrace in the middle of the road. Millions of tiny yellow flowers all over everything become tolerable if I think of the trees’ kiss. It’s enough to make me spontaneously thank God.

So I do.

At the same time, overnight my little zinnia seedlings have been eaten off. Again. For the third year in a row, slugs and snails have decimated my attempts at a flower garden. In fact, current events seem a lot like those poor seedlings. Small ‘d’ democracy seems in danger of slimy political gastropods’ main course. Which makes me angry.

So I pray for God’s love to break through all the ugliness, the hate and spite and cruelty of an ICE agent hurling an abuelita to the ground. I pray for neighbors to love neighbors. And strangers. And people that are different. Disabled. Trans. All the letters. You know, every dang body. Pray and pray some more. But also keep on walking.

Ambling along with my sore neck, I feel pretty small. What could I possibly do to rescue those of us who just want to love God and love neighbors-especially disenfranchised-via- gerrymandering neighbors? I have no choice but to pay through the nose for gas and groceries. I can’t end wars or talk anyone into erecting a statue of me, gold or otherwise.

I take a deep breath in and let it out. The air’s sweet with blooming peonies. Roses are showing off already, and I stop to inhale a Peace rose. Don’t think about the fact that my roses bloom a month earlier than they once did. Just inhale God’s aroma and look closer at the aphids and the ants that herd them.

These aphids are reddish or green. Some have wings; others are porcine, fat ones hanging upside down on a bud. I don’t have the backbone to squish them. The ants always seem to be in a hurry to go somewhere, dodging thorns on the rose highway.

Me too, I think. Me too.

I could stare at this microcosm for hours, imagining the fun God had designing all the little creatures. Picking out the perfect color scheme for every individual, deciding who got a zillion legs and who only needed two. The sheer variety would drop me to my knees in praise if my neck wasn’t so stiff. Astonished by beauty, I’m thankful.

And to me the best part of it is how everything fits together: birth, death, beginnings and endings leading to more beginnings. All of it held together by a God who is love, by love itself.

Rounding the corner back to my home, those lovely maples are still at it. Love entwines their branches and their message to me is clear. Find something or someone to love. Every moment of every day you’re granted upon this earth, love more.

Wave at your neighbor and smile at the smelly guy on the bicycle who asks for change. Drive an abuelita’s grandkids to school or shop for those afraid to leave home.

Pray for those in the warehouses they call detention centers, that mercy would arise once more for mistreated immigrants, especially those disabled or scared or OK, all of them. Be thankful for whatever resources you have and share without worry—God will keep your oil lamp lit. And praise the One who made us all, even wrongheaded meanies, gerrymanderers and selfish grifters.

Sitting on my front step, I hold my head and neck neutral, quiet. I’ll baby it for a while; weeds will have to grow. God walked with me the whole way—even though I was stiff-necked about our current situation. Love God and neighbor; vote to return honor to that small ‘d’ democracy. The giant maples rustle in the breeze, saying we’ll get through this. Keep on loving. Keep on walking.

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I’ve asked myself why I became a mother at all. In college, I was a staunch zero population growth kind of person, telling everyone all the reasons not to have kids.

Nobody knew my secret reason for avoiding motherhood. I was scared. Scared I’d turn out just like my own mother. Scared that my baby would need far more than I could give. Scared my bumbling one-handed self would accidentally drop him and he’d land on his noggin, causing permanent brain damage.

My mom was barely sixteen when, on her first date with an older boy, her life changed forever. She finished high school in maternity smocks.

One shotgun wedding later, I made my grand entrance.

I was perfect, Mom would say. “The hospital nurses said you were the most beautiful baby.” Maybe so, but at the age of eight months, my life changed Mom again. I contracted polio along with about 50,000 others during the 1952 epidemic in Phoenix.

I can’t imagine how a seventeen-year-old girl copes with a disabled baby. Already shamed for out-of-wedlock pregnancy, Mom’s heart broke yet again. She blamed herself for my paralysis for the rest of her life.

Mom was so broken that she couldn’t nurture the way I needed her to. She was a closed door with no doorknob; her soul a house of cards—the slightest breeze destroyed her. I’d always take care of her, knowing she couldn’t take care of me.

In spite of her unavailability, motherhood came for me. During pregnancy, I was terrified as well as sick as the proverbial dog. My fears about dropping the kid haunted my dreams and I worried over every little thing: Pampers had just been invented and were expensive. How could one-handed me pin on a cloth diaper?

Doctors were adamant about supporting the little head, about the proper way to lift an infant. I was ignorant about breastfeeding. And have you seen how tiny the laces are on baby shoes? I was sure I’d either maim my child or else the poor kid would go barefoot.

Of course, birthing was a train wreck. Nursing too. But somehow, I managed not to kill that firstborn son. At home with him all day, I missed intellectual stimulation, but I rather enjoyed reading books to him. We became a tight unit. As long as I bought him Star Wars action figures, he was content to be my sidekick.

But then motherhood kept happening. Linda, the Zero Pop fanatic, was apparently fertile Myrtle. Contraception helped me avoid my teen mother’s fate, but after I had to stop the Pill, firstborn received a brother. Fortunately, I didn’t drop number two, but at six weeks old, his dad managed to fumble the kid, so he almost did land on his head.

God was so generous! To prove that even disabled, I was still a good enough mama not to cause permanent damage to my children, I won the prize. On my third trip through gestation, I delivered surprise twins. I suspect that somewhere in heaven, there was laughter and knee slapping at God’s hilarious sense of humor. Give the one-handed lady two for the price of one.

And that’s kind of how mothering goes, isn’t it? We have all these expectations-your kid’s gonna be an astronaut or president or fabulously wealthy. You’ll be the proud mama of the next Einstein, movie star, inventor who changes the world. And everyone will look at you as the source of all that brilliance and star power.

But after the novelty wears a little, you realize that your baby drools just as much as anybody’s. That your kid eats dirt, picks her nose or refuses to eat his veggies just to make you look bad.

And when you’re the mom of children who’ve failed to launch, who struggle to hold down any job, who are lucky to get a GED, the rest of the world looks at you with pity, shakes its head and wonders why you couldn’t raise your kid right.

No matter what anyone says, it always seems like it’s mom’s fault.

For moms whose kids battle addictions, who hear voices, who can’t seem to get it together, Mother’s Day sucks. For those who wanted kids but couldn’t, who lost kids or lost contact with their kids, nothing can make this holiday better. No fancy Hallmark cards or bouquets or boxes of chocolates will make it any less miserable for too many.

Maybe all of us who are wounded moms or non-moms or grieving moms could use a little mothering ourselves. Someone to give us just one more bedtime goodnight hug, one more love note in our brown bag lunch. Maybe an extra gold star on the fridge to say we did our best. That no matter what, we are loved.

And that’s what all of us really want, hope for, need with burning desperation. To be able to relax on the lap of Love while she reads you a story, the story of you, me, the cosmos. Anything less just makes life hurt more.

Today on Mother’s Day, the Mother part of God stands ready with open arms. She might smell like your mother’s perfume, and she might help you feel loved and secure. Since she’s God, she promises to cradle you in the proper way and most definitely will never drop you on your head.

Happy Mother’s Day to moms everywhere. Love to all the rest who mourn.

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In October 1982, I sat on the floor in my parents’ Denver home. On the radio, Sam Cooke crooned, “You Send Me.” Was I really doing this?

While my husband of six years was away on a fishing trip to Costa Rica, Mom had phoned me. The secret I’d so carefully kept leapt out. My husband was an alcoholic who kept me worrying about finances and our two small children. I didn’t know what to do.

Next day, Mom flew out to San Diego, California. In a whirlwind, furniture was put into storage. I left him a note saying I’d taken our kids, ages three and eighteen months old, and flown to my parents’ place in Colorado.

I rarely cry, but I sat on my parents’ floor and sobbed.

How could I fail twice? I saw nothing but a big fat “F” on my marriage report card. I was terrified, ashamed and had no idea what to do next.

We so often enter relationships with a set of expectations. I’d told myself that my handsome ex-Marine was everything I’d dreamed about. Our family would be middle-class but instead of Phoenix’s scorching sun, we’d live in San Diego’s coastal clime.

That October, Mom dragged me to a Denver attorney’s office to file a legal separation. But I didn’t know what I wanted beyond a prayer he’d quit drinking to excess. Besides, the evangelical church I attended told me that divorce was only possible after infidelity. My husband was faithful—to his scotch.

I hadn’t even told Mom the juicy parts, about the time he’d stumbled in late and managed to drop our six-week-old son on the floor. Or the time he left our car in reverse, and it nearly crashed through the across-the-street neighbor’s picture window. The “rules” of my faith said all that wasn’t good enough to get out.

His alcoholism made me think I wasn’t good enough. In the eighties, religious bookstores were full of books touting ways to spice up marriages. One infamous method was to wrap your naked self in Saran wrap and greet hubby when he returned from a long day at the office. But my hubby didn’t come home—he went straight to the bar. There wasn’t enough Saran wrap in the world to soothe my pain.

At my parents’ home, my heart ached day and night, remembering the time we slow-danced to that Sam Cooke ballad. I dreamed of his fabulous blue eyes, the way the back of his shirt collar smelled when we embraced.

I visited a Presbyterian counselor who said a spouse’s drinking problem justified my leaving. But at night I argued with God. Which was right? The long-suffering wife who puts up with anything and everything except adultery? Or the independent woman who wants an equal partnership?

I prayed hard and tried to be steel-willed. He wasn’t the perfect spouse I’d envisioned; that’s for sure. Half the time we wanted to strangle each other. But the ten-page love letters my husband wrote every day lured me like a bakery aroma. What was God showing me?

I didn’t know.

My life exploded with anxiety. With two kids, how would I make ends meet? All I could do was fall at God’s feet and beg for mercy. On lonely nights, I ignored my heart’s longings to go back. But I couldn’t give up altogether.

At Christmas, we all met in Phoenix for a family reunion. My husband drove all night from San Diego to beg me one last time. I crumbled. There was simply something about him that I couldn’t let go. The moment we laid eyes on each other, we knew.

I set boundaries: He had to stop drinking before I’d consider reconciliation. But I too had a lot of work to do to become a better partner. If either of us walked away, the relationship could never work.

I went back determined to work hard on our differences. Turns out my husband loved me more than alcohol and quit drinking. Both of us ate plenty of humble pie.

I get the feeling God is cool with my new attitude: looking for the good in others, loving, forgiving, working through problems rather than yelling around as a friend used to say. The kindness I show to others works just as well in my marriage.

Of course, relationships don’t always work out. Sometimes the deal-breakers are just too many. Or one partner isn’t willing to work on problems. God surely blesses us if we’re forced to walk away, knowing we tried.

But even in broken relationships, God won’t break up with you. You may, as I did, need to give more attention to forgiveness, compassion and love. Resolve to be honest with each other when problems arise. And maybe learn to laugh at yourself and with your partner.

God won’t be mad if your relationship falls apart. Some couples are just terrible together. I doubt heaven has a hissy fit if break-ups can’t be avoided. God only wishes we’d try harder to err on the side of love. Whatever relationships you have, laugh often and forgive a LOT. God won’t ever break up with you.

He’s gone now. I miss him every day. But God’s arms surround me with a warmth and a love that goes beyond understanding. Listen: God is singing to each of us, “You send me.” I’ll slow-dance to that.

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After a year of writing, rewriting and editing, my tenth book, CARRY ME THROUGH: 90 Devotions for When You Can’t Go On is finally available!

I showed off a copy to a friend, who remarked that she’s only reading escapist literature right now. I totally get that—who wants to dwell on the sucky state of affairs these days? Wars, high prices, the specter of ICE raids and concentration camps seem as if they’re ganging up on us to force us to despair.

Everywhere we look, the sign flashes ominously: Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.

But in the stillness of night, the lonely hours when you feel abandoned, wouldn’t it be nice to know that Someone’s propping you up? Even carrying you when you’re sure you can’t go another step?

I’ve been there—through my life-long disability, family illnesses, my husband’s recent death, my grown kids’ substance use and mental illness, a host of problems common and unusual. And I know how those middle-of-the-night cries beg God for miracles that often seem late to arrive.

But after reading Isaiah 46:4, where God says he’ll carry you, I turned around and to my surprise Jesus was carrying me through the hot coals. Not around, under or over, but THROUGH. I relaxed into God’s embrace and somehow found new strength to meet every challenge.

No matter what you’re facing today—that awful diagnosis, a job loss, a child in distress, a spouse who walks out—any crappy situation you can think of, God can carry with you. For you. In spite of naysayers or your own cautious doubts.

I’ve written these brief devotions to try to imagine every kind of problem that might need a helping hand to carry. There are surely plenty others, but when you can’t go on, God will help you up, dust off your scraped knees and then offer to ride you on God’s strong shoulders.

Here’s a sample of CARRY ME THROUGH. I hope it inspires you to let God (or love or whatever you want to call it) carry you through your pain. Maybe you’ll be strengthened, so that you can help someone else trust those loving arms to get through their next crisis too.

CARRY ME THROUGH is available through Amazon, B&N or wherever you get your books. If you order online, consider leaving a review. Thank You.

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I’m driving home on an ordinary afternoon. The radio plays an old Elvis tune. Out of nowhere, a familiar scent wafts past me. Astounded, my heart nearly stops. The odor is unmistakable—a clean pine and fir with hints of Old Spice. It’s the scent of the back of my late husband’s neck.

And then it’s gone.

Was this an invitation to trust God’s love?

As a kid, I was never sure about God. Some said my arm’s paralysis from polio wasn’t healed because I lacked faith. Others said healing must not be God’s will. Many encouraged me to be an overcomer of bad luck. It’s always been hard for me to trust in a loving God.

Unfortunately, in my girlhood I also absorbed a lot of ideas about God that made an all-powerful deity seem scary, capricious and crabby. I constructed this mean God from pieces of authorities I ran up against: There was Battleaxe Basinger, my eighth-grade teacher whose stare could melt glaciers. How could I forget the day she forced a boy in my class to put his chewing gum on the classroom wall and stick his nose on the wad?

My own grandmother tried to soften the reality of my disability by chirping that I could be a Breck Girl (an ad campaign for Breck Shampoo). And I told you about the awful guy who asked if I swam in a circle.

All I heard was you’re not worthy. God really messed up the day He made you, honey. What a pity.

Children who conclude they can’t trust their families often wind up not trusting much of anything or anyone. Barbed remarks—intended or not—easily find their targets in those who’ve already decided they’re different. Less than.

Think of someone who deflated you bit by bit or all at once. A gym teacher who said you didn’t make the team. A critical family member or one who feels sorry for you. The “friend” who ghosts you. Sexual or other abuse you’re too ashamed to mention. How can you trust?

Too often these slights transfer to our ideas and feelings about God. Currently, some claim that war is justified because the Old Testament is filled with violence. God came down and obliterated a bunch of ancient folks He was pissed off at, so that must mean God wants us to go blow stuff up too.

At least that’s how some interpret all the smiting in the Bible. Throughout human history, a lot of people said God had to be on your side if you could somehow point to a biblical example of vengeance and fire and brimstone.

But what if the Old Testament stories, showing God as warlike, instead are intended to show us how we might find our way back to the God we can trust?

Whenever Israel got into a fight, God was willing to listen to the human viewpoint, as if the creator wanted to be in dialogue with us. God constantly reminded them and us that love and mercy are what God is really made of.

Maybe those tales are there to demonstrate that even when we’re boneheaded and warlike, God always says, “Come on home to love.”

We keep trying to make God as petty and spiteful as we are. God must shake his head when we insist on rejecting God’s tender care instead of trusting God with our very being.

When you’re beat down by rejection, by isolation, by not belonging, the last thing you need is a God that’s like the bully who steals your lunch money. The cosmos feels pretty lonely when you can’t trust even the Maker.

Kind of abandoned , actually.

Maybe it’s good to find out which God comes out on top: the stingy old crabapple who would just as soon throw you to the pit as look at you; or God who is love, who made the universe from love and who breathed life into you so that you can be love alongside everything else sacred and true.

You can’t love what you don’t trust.

Like you, I’ve lost loved ones. I’ve hated myself for my physical deformities, even if most people never notice. I’ve allowed grief to pin my soul to the wall like that boy’s wad of gum.

My belief in God meant nothing until I decided to trust God completely. I had to fall backwards from the top of the stratosphere without a net. My husband’s scent was as real as you or me.

Astonished, I found myself cradled in the gentle web of God’s care, willing to let me prove I’m safe there. Allowing love to course through my veins, I trust he’ll never let me down or stop loving me. No matter what fresh hell I face, God’s there, carrying me through it.

God even put a bow on top of my new trust gift. I was lamenting my struggle when a friend handed me a small tract. A Litany of Trust is a list of all the ways Jesus wants to be the most trusted person in my life and your life. It’s a pretty long list.

The litany boils down to this: God’s trusty because of love. Even though He created every single thing, He never lords it over or reminds us of what screw-ups we are. Trade that bellicose God for a trusted friend, comforter, advocate and healer. Go ahead, fall backwards. In God we can trust.

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