Margaret’s Musings – Faith
Leftover Lace
The Wedding is Over, Now What? It was beautiful, but it wasn't perfect. As I shared the post-wedding download chat over the phone with my dear friend we both concluded that life is “tainted.” Even in the moments of our greatest joy, something icky tries to steal it...
Faith Deconstruction and Reconstruction
This article from The Redbud Post speaks to all of us engaged in a walk of faith who find ourselves tearing things down and rebuilding or sitting with friends who are paving this path, but aren't we all to some degree? The Reconstruction Choice by Margaret...
Building the Kingdom
Often my husband and I walk our dog Snuggles and talk about the next thing we want to build, lately that conversation has centered around how our baby church plant is growing up, a new garage or filling the massive potholes where we park our car. Building is tangible,...
Forgiving an Angel
How the musical “Hamilton” led me to forgive a painful wrong.
A Back-to-School Existential Crisis
Today I turned the page on a fall tradition, school. No one is in school! After decades of teaching writing, or packing my children’s backpacks, or heading off to school myself, I’m sitting at my writing desk sans school. We live in a new city, in the midst of an...
Letting Go of Billy Graham
It's not easy to imagine life in America without Billy Graham. He served as a comforting blanket of trustworthiness and faith in the highest corridors of power and some of the least visible places on earth. He moved through doors freely and as long as he walked the...
Natasha’s New Book, Mentor For Life
I have to admit being a bit in awe of people who go to military academies. Natasha Robinson is one of them. They emit a burning efficiency which singes us lesser beings who actually spend our moments at a stoplight daydreaming rather than crossing off the to do list....
Watching and Waiting with Wonder
Watching and Waiting with Wonder Signs and wonders. A phrase so common in the Bible that the word “wonder” appears 109 times. Wonder is defined as: The feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable....
Richard Foster and Holy Week
Subs for my classes in place, I drove four hours last weekend to Calvin College in Michigan for a writer’s conference. Not knowing what to expect, I arrived in the dark, without my glasses to twist and turn my way down the roads of Grand Rapids which are marked by...
Surviving the Divided Family Christmas
“I’m not coming if your father is going to be there.” Sadly, this is a familiar reply to the Christmas invite in families of divorce. My parents divorced the year of our wedding, so these refrains are familiar territory. They challenge our ability to walk in the...
Who is She?
Have you met the Proverbs 31 woman? Her description has always evoked feelings of awe and annoyance. Sewing late into the night by a lamp that does go out, gorgeous toned arms planting a vineyard, a prominent husband, self-designed purple clothes and children that get...