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Step through my front door, and you’re greeted by shoes. Running shoes. Slides. Rubber boots. Loafers. There are shoes for playing soccer, shoes for playing baseball, shoes for church, and shoes for band performances. Oh, we can’t forget,  shoes for stuffing your feet in when you have to run through the rain real quick to grab the mail from the mailman because someone has once again let the dog into the front yard. All these shoes, and this morning my youngest still managed to go outside barefoot and pick up a glass shard with his toe.  Currently, there are no fewer than fifty-eight shoes massed up into four giant piles around our front door. We don’t even have a “no shoes in the house” rule. I’d be thrilled if each member of the household would wear their shoes all the way throu...

I rose early on my birthday last week, stepping outside into air cool and quiet. All was still. No breeze rustling the bamboo fronds. No birds bouncing from branches. No squirrels catapulting from the highest tree limbs to the wooden fence and back up to the studio roof.  I live my days sensitive to time–perplexed by the way it can stretch out, one long moment after another, and how, also, it can dart and weave and feel like pinpricks of reality, barely realized, scarcely seen, unnoticed before it disappears.  I have lived the habit of missing time. But not today. The day of my birthday is usually when I am most sensitive to time–more than in December, that time of reflection and planning for the new year. Or even on my children’s birthdays, although their aging always feels like...

www.courtnayerichard.com Can you feel it? Do you know in your heart that God has taken notice to the desires of your heart and now can you sense that He is about to do something that blows your mind? Has He already begun to blow your mind? Sis, the best is yet to come! I don’t know about you, but this popular phrase keeps me on the edge of my seat. It keeps me encouraged. It keeps me expecting God’s best. What does it do for you? It reminds me of the Scripture in Ephesians 3:20 that says, “And now glory to God, who is able through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” WOW, right? I love this verse because it tells me that God is able to do exceedingly and more abundantly than what I could ever ask or imagine.  In other words, wh...

During this time of pandemic, we are living in our own little worlds within our own four walls. How deeply we miss the familiar bridges to community that join us together. As we live physically distanced from each other, we can live unseen. It is both challenging and strange. There is some comfort in knowing this is a problem for all of humanity, and that we are not alone in hardships we might be facing. But it is also isolating. We feel lost in the big picture, certain that this pandemic is not about us, and yet undeniably our lives have been completely turned upside down. We all are living through the same threat, yet each story is unique, and how the catalytic threat has impacted our lives varies. We long for someone to see our stuggle,–our heart and the particulars of our hard.  I...

I recognize that holidays can be a difficult time for anyone, but particularly if you are parenting alone. My hope is to equip you with tools that will encourage you along your journey. If not careful, Father’s Day for a single mom can be a disaster. What is often a celebration in May on Mother’s Day can become a tragedy in June on Father’s Day, unless we are mindful of our thoughts and actions. Mother’s Day is a celebration of all things, mom. It is a time to focus on the great mothers in our lives – mom, grandmother, sister, friend, or aunt. It is a time to give thanks to God for those precious kids He has blessed us with. Sadly, Father’s Day can be a time for single moms to focus on lack, e.g., lack of an active father in their children’s lives, lack of what you had hoped would be a for...

I read older poems I’ve written and try to find myself in them. They feel vaguely foreign, memories of writing faded and far away. It makes me feel strange to read them, making me wonder about the intersection of heart and mind and truth and imagination when we write. What motivated those words and ideas? Why communicate them? Why write them down? Did the ideas exist before I wrote them? Or did they come into being only through my writing–meaning they would not have existed if I never wrote them at all? Is what we create something that remains a part of us? An articulation of the heart and mind upon a page? Or is what we’ve created separate from us, an unowned thing the moment we set down our ideas and move them from brain to heart to public view? And what does it mean when the words come ...

The other night I went to check on my son before going to bed. When I walked in to see him I saw he had kicked off his blankets. When I asked why, he told me he was hot. I warned him it may get cooler overnight so if he got cold to put his blanket back on. But before leaving I give him a peace of wisdom to help him relax. “Be Still,” I said “If you keep rolling around and moving you’re not going to cool down.” I knew this because I too have had to receive this same advice. On a trip to Ghana West Africa in collage I found myself in a similar situation. In a van with other students I found myself uncomfortably hot. My efforts to twist and turn in my seat to find a comfortable position we’re all in vain. Our tour guide and translator saw my failed efforts and offered one piece of advice “Be ...

I always told you I would catch you. And I catch the whole world. It is trembling now.  I confess, Lord, I fear speaking, writing, like my words aren’t going to help. That is easy to believe. It is harder to believe your actions can help–and easier to believe that it is better to protect yourself and not try to change. How do I need to change? How does this world need to change? What is broken, God, from your perspective? For I read the news: I am listening and watching–my feet walking, my voice speaking–in protest with brothers and sisters who call for justice, for change, for a different way of living in the world. I know I have much to understand–that I will not fully understand. But I believe you have given each of us what we need to love one another. You have given each of us the...

When we were children, one form of fun and entertainment for us was playing board games. One year my oldest brother brought home a Bible Trivia game called The Gold Talent. To this day, I remember my brother with his handsome smile, asking, “Who was the king who had his thumbs and big toes cut off?” As a teenager, in all of my reading of the Bible, I’d never found anything like this. Back then, we didn’t have cell phones or even a computer at home. We had encyclopedias, but this information would not be in them, and if it was, it would take too long to find. So we were stumped, and we said, “Who?” He said, “Adoni-Bezek.” Adoni be who??? I had never heard of him; perhaps you hadn’t either. Adoni-Bezek’s story is found in Judge...

Many people have responded to this crisis in destructive ways—theft, aggression, addiction, abuse, greed, despair, and suicide. But positivity is also on the rise. Here are ten great ways people are filling their extra, or at least redefined, time at home: Projects People are digging in— getting rid of stuff, finishing projects they haven’t had time to work on, or starting new ones. My yard has been mine on days we have good weather. My husband built a wonderful greenhouse for our tomatoes.  And we plan to spread bark dust, aerate the lawn, and get rid of the moss—things we’ve wanted to do, but just haven’t yet. Crafts Quilters are covering beds and laps of friends, family, and anyone else who needs a warm material hug. Seamstresses are making masks by the dozen. Yarn addicts are knit...