by Ashley Larkin | Sep 30, 2014 | 31 Days 2014: Doing As I Say, Perspective, Truth-telling
Wow, is it October again?! The rain and chill to the air, the abundance of horse chestnuts littering our backyard, the return of pumpkin everything all beat with the same answer. (Um, that’s yes.) Those of you who’ve hung around here a while — or who...
by Ashley Larkin | Aug 1, 2014 | Faith, Five Minute Friday, Hope, Open endings, Risk-taking, Surrender, Trust, Truth-telling
The sky flashes, light unzipping across the dawning summer morning. It is surprising in these parts, a morning storm without rain, and the unseen bolt is a beginning that spreads fingers across earthly skies. She sits across from this new face at the table, and...
by Ashley Larkin | Jul 15, 2014 | Fear, One Word: Seek, Risk-taking, Trust, Truth-telling
Everywhere I look and in every word I read, I hear, Brave. Brave. Be brave. _____ We welcome in this dear girl, knocked around and emotionally roughed up by peers this school year, and she brings her self, an intact smile and quirky sense of humor as if she is not...
by Ashley Larkin | Jul 4, 2014 | Fear, Five Minute Friday, Mothering, Surrender, Trust, Truth-telling
I hardly recognize how often I do it. Hold my breath, wait for the feeling of fear to pass, worry to skitter through, even a feeling to take hold. Just how much of my day goes by, I wonder, pushing through to the next thing without expelling waiting air from my lungs?...
by Ashley Larkin | Jun 8, 2014 | Faith, Family, Grace, Marriage, Mothering, Truth-telling
It’s late at night for me to think about writing, let alone do it, but when Lala tells me flat out that she doesn’t plan to sleep in tomorrow morning, and I start feeling itchy with all I haven’t written, the thoughts in my head mingling with the...
by Ashley Larkin | May 28, 2014 | Hope, Poetry, Redemption, Truth-telling
We’re creaky, a little worse for wear, orangey rough sharp edges. When you open us up like gates, we make a racket and feel some embarrassed, like maybe we should have buffed out the bumpy parts and greased the creaky parts and put out shiny best, but you and...