hope – Julianne Vantland

Resurrection

It’s gray and misty outside today. Sometimes rain feels fresh and cleansing but this is the cold, sleety, spitting kind. I’m at a coffee shop but I want to be at home under a big heavy blanket with my kids tucked in beside me. I want to sleep. One of my most beloved spiritual mothersContinue reading “Resurrection”

Selah, child of light

For years I have said that miscarrying our tiny Selah was the beginning of the end of faith for me. In the days after that very worst day, family and friends reached out with words of comfort, with meals, with stories of their own loss. Tangible, vulnerable acts of kindness that made me feel lessContinue reading “Selah, child of light”

An Imprinting of Love: How to Be Gentle With Your Kids and Yourself (at the Spiritual Parent)

I was nine when we moved from our small New England town to the suburban sprawl of Colorado Springs. Everything was bigger there. The houses, the churches, the mountains, somehow even God was larger, more real, more present. Christianity had been an important part of our family culture before, but now it took center stage.Continue reading “An Imprinting of Love: How to Be Gentle With Your Kids and Yourself (at the Spiritual Parent)”

let them lead us

We waited nearly an hour fidgeting with phones rehearsing answers wearily at attention to the future While we inched forward the children wasted no time organizing themselves learning names and giggling games I wondered what they thought of us (probably nothing) civically queuing to solve the BIG PROBLEMS with one silent push of a buttonContinue reading “let them lead us”