On visits to my grandma’s house, I would curl up on the wooden bench under the carport and listen as my aunts, uncles and older cousins told stories—family stories about people like Uncle Al, who worked at the Wrigley Chewing Gum factory in Chicago and brought home giant rolls of gum to share; Aunt Lynn, who made apple butter in a big kettle o...

On the way to her tonsillectomy, we laugh, she and I, talk of what flavor of ice cream she’d most like afterwards, when it’s all finished and she’s home, what books I might read aloud to her, and when it’d be best to pull up the old quilts and watch the screen version of Anne of Green Gables. I tell her that with us living in a h...

When a friend of mine told me a year ago that she knew a girl I'd love and who reminded her of me, I brushed it off. I love nearly everyone I meet—even people who are annoyingly like me. But Season? When Season added me as a friend on Facebook, I looked at her profile pics and read the comments....

Susanna Wesley bore 19 children—including John, who founded the Methodist Church.  Her husband was often absent—and at times her only means to pray privately was to cover her head with her apron.    “Help me, Lord,” Susanna would pray, “to remember that religion is not confined to the church or closet, nor ex...