My bucket list has shortened as the years go by. Maybe no marathon or New York Times best-seller. But hold me to this goal: I want to keep clapping until the very end. I never, never want to lose the sense of wonder.

Pandemics. Politics, Social struggles. Global tragedies. These past years have felt unreal. But what has been most crazy making for me is the deep divisions in the Church. How can we find our way back to loving each other and our neighbors and seeking His Kingdom? I need reality checks: Scripture; honest, diverse community; prayer. I need to continually recalibrate back to the Christ revealed in Scripture.

“If I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God.” Oswald Chambers

"Thou Shalt Not Postpone Joy"

That's one of my favorite phrases and no one paints and lives that out like Tricia Robinson. Her heart pours out in her painting.

Resilience is the willow tree of attributes. It flexes, stretches, and bends. The winds blow, failure hits, rejection hurts , loss and grief and disappointment happen. I can break, give up, or sway in the breeze and sink my roots deeper into God.

Ephesians is my heart book, where I grappled with the “believe it or not” truth of God’s love for me. This is the book where I caught the picture that it is through all of our individual puzzle pieces fitting together that we show Jesus Christ, God’s great Masterpiece, to the world.

One of the best things about Instagram is waiting for a post from Ruth Leslie to see what she named her latest piece of art. It always makes me smile (and laugh out loud) and the art is always beautiful.