Hey there!

In the past few weeks, I’ve wrung my maternal hands as my eldest took a cross-country trip with (very responsible) friends, gone camping and packed up just before a tornado hit, sat in a hospital waiting room as a friend let go of her beloved husband that seemed just fine just a few months ago, and watched my backyard garden do its thing like it’s spring or something. I took a short writing break, but my goodness have things been full.

I’m continually grateful for those of you who’ve told me Bitter & Sweet has indeed been the kind companion I hoped it’d be for your Lenten journey. Lent never ceases to surprise me, year after year, with the life lessons it holds for me. This year has been no exception.

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. 👉 New episode of A Drink With a Friend! 👈 It's about halfway through Seth's challenge to stay off social media for the first six months of 2022. How have the first three months been? Will anything change for the next three months? He and I talk some more about big-picture social media: does it work as a public square? When is censorship called for, and when does it violate free speech? And are the positives ultimately worth all the negatives?

2. We used to do this idea of a daily 15-minute cleanup when the kids were younger, but now we just assign daily chores and rotate weekly. …I kinda like the idea of getting back to the group cleanup time.

3. “You put an ounce in a bucket each day, you get a quart.” I needed this quick reminder why writing just a bit daily will lead me to finishing a book (yeah, I’ve published a number of books already, but I still forget this).

4. I love Claire’s willingness to just go there and to do so with such clarity and winsomeness. “To quote Flannery O’Connor, ‘The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.’ We don’t believe in Jesus’ love for us because it feels good. We believe in it because it’s true. The same goes for hell.”

5. And finally, I shared this in my English class yesterday as a *chef’s kiss* example of how to read aloud well.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

• A Wind in the Door, by Madeleine L’Engle

Quotable 💬

“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

— C.S. Lewis #

Quick Links 🔗

• Create your own Rule of Life

• Subscribe to A Drink With a Friend

• Travel with me + Seth & Amber Haines to Tuscany, Italy: July 23-August 2

Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔

Taken from James Clear’s excellent newsletter because it was poignant for me:

Write down all the projects you are working on right now. What is the one thing that, if you had the courage to eliminate it entirely, would make all the others easier?

Have a great weekend,

Tsh

p.s. What haunting art.