Tag: story (page 1 of 1)

“The Savior and the Saved”

On Easter Sunday when I was 17, one thought appeared unbidden and would not be chased away: Maybe I’ll pray this morning. I attended church only by parental decree. I wore knee-high Doc Martens and crimson hair in protest and sat through the pastor’s prayers with my eyes boldly open, head unbowed. I did not pray. But:

Maybe I’ll pray this morning.

There is nothing dramatic in my story—no brutal addiction, no “rock bottom,” no conversion in the backseat of a police cruiser—unless you consider the fact that the Creator of the universe unlocked some hidden chamber in the heart of a hurting girl and sowed there one thought, Maybe I’ll pray this morning, and from that seed sprung the sapling that buckled the sidewalk, shattered the concrete, and is still growing.

There was an altar call at the strip mall church that morning, and at the front of the sanctuary I knelt, with damp mascara and a half dozen others, and I prayed: God forgive me. The Lord lifted the glass dome off what I thought was the world and in rushed the dizzying winds of heaven. In rushed a new thought: God exists and he is not cruel or indifferent, but he loves me. I held that thought tenderly, the way one might hold a bird.

Seventeen years ago tomorrow, I came to faith. Mine was not a flashy conversion, but one that left me reeling, as though I’d skeptically tapped the back of a wardrobe only to find that it led to Narnia. I got to share that story alongside the story of Easter in a post for the Deeply Rooted blog.

You can read the full post here.

The Maggie B.

I am not one to grow weepy at the thought of my children getting older, but there is something about the thought of this child turning four that gives me pause.

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She has always been so little, you know—fiesty and loud and sweet and little—and yet, tomorrow she turns four, an age that isn’t exactly big but that does turn some sort of corner, taking her out of toddlerdom and into a new season of life, where the questions are frequent and the play enthralling.

The Maggie B. suits this season in Sarah’s life and so it makes sense that she enjoys it: the story is an adventure story but a comforting one, where the objects of everyday life—soup, storms and younger siblings—are a part of the quiet action. When Margaret Barnstable, heroine of The Maggie B., wishes on a star, she wishes for a ship “named after me, to sail for a day alone and free, with someone nice for company.” She gets her wish, and she and her brother sail the seas together in a comfy ship (complete with farm and fruit trees) for a single day. It is a wish I could see Sarah making.

The Maggie B. | Little Book, Big Story

In fact, it is a wish I might have made as a child—or might still make, if given the opportunity. Something about this book enchanted me the very first time I read it, and it has remained a favorite in our family ever since, but I am glad to see Sarah adopting it as a personal favorite now and bringing it to me while I clear the table after dinner with that sleepy question: “Will you read this to me?” The thought that she’ll be reading to herself soon, that I won’t hear that question from her for much longer—that might make me a little weepy. But until then, I’ll enjoy those moments on the couch with Sarah’s hair tickling my chin, reading The Maggie B.

The Maggie B. | Little Book, Big Story

The Maggie B.
Irene Haas (1975)