Today was a day of trees stretching themselves tall toward the sunshine, of dandelions growing a head taller after a day of storms. It was yellow and blue, light-filled and glistening with hope.   It is spring. And inside, I feel velveteen, verdant like the earth. I am thankful.   The first item on yesterday’s list of things I’m doing during this first week of the rest of my life is give thanks. That’s where I started today.   Interestingly, and certainly not by coincidence, I read Psalm 77 this morning, which is all about remembering God’s great work in your past and declaring it to...

Every time I step through the doors of Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, I fall under its majestic spell.     During a private tour of the three-year-old limestone building this weekend, a lone cellist practiced on the auburn Brazilian cherry-wood platform in the concert hall. The lush rasp of his bow over the strings surrounded us with music even up in the balcony, as if the instrument were whispering its melody right into our ears.   I am overwhelmed by both the beauty of strings and the artistry of an elegant building like the Schermerhorn. As it turns out, so was the king...

It is Saturday morning, and quiet, except for the sound of rain splashing out of the gutter into the empty clay flower pots beside the house. I sit at the kitchen table, lit naturally by two great windows and the pale peach glimmer of the candle warming my little white teapot. On the other side of the room, the small window above the sink is open a few inches, letting in the spring-soaked smell of rain and the music of its falling—almost like bells in the distance.     On that windowsill sits a tiny earthen vase containing three mini daffodils. They sing with remembrance of my mother’s...

I awoke this cloudy morning to yellow buds on the mini daffodils I planted in memory of my mom last March. By the time I got home from church and errands this afternoon, a downpour had given way to sunshine, and the daffodils were fully open.     This transition from winter to almost-spring is a fitting picture of life infused with the presence of God. He is the rain that waters seeds of faith in cloudy seasons. He is the hope that flowers after the heart’s winter. He is the spring that brings redemptive life to places of pain.   This weekend I had the privilege to serve and speak at...

Today is the year anniversary of the day my mom took her first breath in heaven. Though I think of her every day, I wanted to do something special as a memorial on this significant day. I wished I could leave a bouquet of daisies, her favorite flower, on her grave, but I live 800 miles away from it.   What, then, to do? I wondered if a ritual of some kind could really matter anyway, since nothing could possibly be an adequate memorial to a lifetime of love, to the rest of a lifetime of deeply felt loss.   Somehow, though, memorial rituals do matter to those who desire them. We got the idea...