Identity Crisis

Identity Crisis

In my daughter’s recent graduation photos, I see her pose with friends and classmates from around the world—a vast and fascinating variety of colors and cultures, ethnicities and languages. As a holder of triple citizenship, she barely notices but instead integrates the differences into her multiverse. Amazingly, she’s never seemed to suffer from an identity…

He Was There All the Time

He Was There All the Time

Of course, you remember the classic meme where a woman reviews her life by means of a series of footprints on the beach. She wonders why God disappeared at the most difficult moments of her life, but it turns out He carried her then. He was there all the time. Recently a dear friend spoke…

Art Therapy

Art Therapy

The stories that turn up in The Quarantine Tales have highlighted many of the themes threaded through my work. I’ve discovered that one of my favorite topics is ART (as July’s posts indicate). Art therapy touches our hearts. Even my books are purposed to tease beauty out of barren places and broken people. “The earth…

Stitching Stories from Stains

Stitching Stories from Stains

God is in the restoration business. He reminded me today after a candle scorched our anniversary tablecloth. The marred keepsake will likely join my pile of patchwork possibilities, because in our family, we’ve been stitching stories from stains for years. It’s tempting to mourn the losses. But it’s also comforting to realize that’s okay. “God…

New Legends of Chiloé

New Legends of Chiloé

“If you want to change the world, pick up a pen,” Martin Luther said—and did. Thirty-two years ago, as a young wife and mother in the (almost) godforsaken Islands of Chiloé, I decided I wanted to change the strangely delusional world I lived in. So I picked up a pen and began to write some…