I didn’t know I was a control freak. This ugly trait surfaced when I finished making summer schedules for the office. The little columns were all lined up neatly on my Google calendar, indicating where shifts overlapped and where we might have a gap. And there before my eyes was the amazing revelation. I could [...]

I forgot to eat lunch today. That never happens to me. No matter how busy our day is at work, I’m watching the clock by about ten, calculating how long before we can lock the door and go up to the cafe for what Brother Lawrence once described as “this little holiday in the middle [...]

Please refrain from throwing the rocks you are holding in your hands. I, too, fantasize about having uninterrupted hours alone in a mountain cabin (like the one pictured here) where I can think, write, rest, and write some more for days on end. But I live in the reality of a material world where a [...]

I started writing my first novel more than two decades ago. We were driving by a life-sized Nativity scene, and one of our children said, “I wonder what happened to the shepherds after that?” A little shepherd boy popped immediately into my head, and I was pretty sure he would answer the question if I [...]