by Ashley Larkin | Oct 24, 2014 | Five Minute Friday, Risk-taking, Trust, Truth-telling
I dared named Shame this week. Looked her right in accusing, bloodshot eyeballs and told her to get out of my car, my bed. My muscles recognized her first, that old rush and dull ache of inadequacy, vague regret. I told her she wasn’t welcome anymore, that she...
by Ashley Larkin | Oct 16, 2014 | Celebration, Childhood, Faith, Giveaway, Perspective, Poetry, Risk-taking, Surrender
If you’d like a gentle hello each time I post new, please subscribe at the sidebar or tab along the top, or Like Draw Near Blog on Facebook. I’m always so thankful that you choose to join me here. Dirty napkins, homework packets, sticky jam spots, markers,...
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 30, 2014 | Joy, Risk-taking, Surrender, Trust
I mix a splash of spruce green acrylic paint with the chartreuse, let my paintbrush pick up and lay down the two colors unevenly. I do not know what will appear before me when I do. I hold one of the raw wooden-handled brushes that sit in the jar on the shelf between...
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 3, 2014 | Childhood, Family, Risk-taking, Trust
As a girl, I studied the globe and pages of books filled with stories of people from many lands, gazed at traditional costumes on my porcelain dolls, memorizing skin tones and lace. I spoke with accents, learned to distinguish U.S. dialects and the origin of last...
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