I sit in a business meeting downtown, listening to a presentation on change management. Along with other participants, I take a brief resiliency test, and my score surprises me.   Apparently, I’m more resilient than I thought. Or than I often feel.     Since that day, I haven’t been able to get the idea of resilience out of my mind. It’s even made its way into my Bible reading, connecting with stories and characteristics of faith. And although it’s already the end of January and my New Year’s resolutions haven’t yet made their ways into written goals, I know how I want to live in 2015....

We didn’t see much of the sun in December, but on one splendid morning walk, I took in the cold air and prisms of sunlight on frosted grass.     Scriptures immediately rushed over me: His mercies are new every morning. The Father of Lights does not change like shifting shadows. He makes all things new.   But the most prominent verse tugging at my spirit was this one: Weeping may endure for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.   Rejoicing, the kind that comes when sunlight breaks through a dreary month-long cloud cover. The kind that comes with the relief of healing. The kind...

Twas the night before Christmas, and I had a revelation.     I was in the guest room wrapping the gifts I had shipped north or stuffed into my extra suitcase, everything spread out before me on the bed. A cup of tea and my stepmom’s just-baked spice cookies stood on the night stand. My Pandora Christmas playlist filled the room with classics by Andy Williams and Bing Crosby.   Suddenly a flash of memory took me back to wrapping gifts in the same room four years earlier. It was the first Christmas without my mother. The house was literally cold and dark, every space empty with her...

This time of year I miss her even more than usual—my mom.     It was this month in 2009 that I took leave to be with her. It was this week in 2009 that we shared our last Thanksgiving holiday, the one when she requested we sing the Doxology before eating our dinner. It was this weekend that I took my last day trip with her and my dad together, a venture to Brooklyn, NY.   We ate dinner in a restaurant that floated beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. We stood on a pier and watched the sun sinking toward the waters of the East River, the Statue of Liberty raising her torch in the distance....

It was on this Saturday one year ago—in this season when the goldenrod blooms and the leaves just begin to turn—that we made our vows under a majestic oak tree. Since then, I’ve been overwhelmed with gratitude, both solemn and joyful—this light but sacred weight to carry, like a bridal bouquet. A continuous sense of wonderment and thankfulness has pervaded my first year of marriage, like beautiful music ever playing in the background. God has blessed me far beyond what I could ask or imagine.   This morning at breakfast my husband of one year (whom I love even more than I did on our wedding day)...