"Girl, that smile could light up a room." I'm never far away from a grin. The happy just kind of creeps out across my cheeks and up into my eyes. Very much like Buddy the elf, smiling's my favorite. In high school, I apparently looked so bubbly that the JROTC instructor asked if I was... Continue Reading →
"We are the women who want what God wants—more than we are afraid of it." (Ann Voskamp) Once upon a time, a girl sat at the bottom of a mountain in a shopping cart. She couldn't get out, and there was no one else around for miles. Knowing she just had to reach the peak... Continue Reading →
My absolute favorite part of any trip is coming home and unpacking. I don't care if I get to spend a month in Fiji on the beach (well, I mean, I might care a little)—unloading my suitcase, doing laundry, putting everything where it goes, and reestablishing my normal rhythms again? This is where my heart... Continue Reading →
November comes alive just in time to kiss the pumpkins, caving in slightly around the mouths, off our porches. She sweeps the last bits of leaves through the neighborhood in hopes of making our dwellings a brighter spark for family to flock toward like geese on their way home. The scent of fresh bread mingles... Continue Reading →
Insert all the glitter ever here! We've done it! A full 31 days of self-discovery—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the mercy-filled. Take a bow, if you please. This month has been marvelousy tackled by the one-of-a-kind, spectacular, crucial you! Hooray! Curious about more resources for this final week? Gotcha covered. Creativity: Check out... Continue Reading →
DAY 31 "The meaning of our lives emerges in the surrender of ourselves to an adventure of becoming who we are not yet." (Brennan Manning) Oh, my sweet friend, you have done it. The scary, tiring, unsure work of seeing yourself as you are without turning away or grabbing the armor that keeps life at... Continue Reading →
DAY 30 Making a list and checking it twice is my jam. I love planning and details and hot cups of tea cooling as schedules fill up with washi tape and color-coordinated dates, information solidifying on the page. The energy of raw data being gathered, sifted, verified, organized, and recorded in a useful way is... Continue Reading →
DAY 29 Ah, New Year's resolutions. About 80% fail by the second week of February (U.S. News), and only 8% succeed in any given year (University of Scranton). And yet, come January 1, we keep doggedly showing up, writing down, and wondering what went wrong (curse you, Valentine's Day candy!). Resolutions are dreams. Goals are... Continue Reading →
DAY 28 The scream ran its shockwaves through our entire house. Dad rushed into the room where my little brother and I had been playing to find Jared in tears, clutching his skull, me looking caught, and a very suspicious ping pong paddle wallowing in two pieces on the floor. "Kassie, what happened?" Dad demanded.... Continue Reading →
DAY 27 "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed ... Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the... Continue Reading →
The Dwelling Place 