Moving forward in an intentional way involves a lot of sorting. And it involves grief.
Dana VanderLugtFebruary 22, 2021
My 14 year-old son sat at a card table in the new makeshift office in my bedroom, complaining about a physics lesson on potential versus kinetic energy that he was attempting as part of his new virtual schooling. “When am…
Dana VanderLugtApril 30, 2020
Last Friday, I watched out my office window as children burst out of the doors of their school to board the buses for what my second grader is calling a “really, really big spring break.” The night before, at 11…
Dana VanderLugtMarch 18, 2020
Once a month I get to tell a Bible story to the little ones in our church while the adults are in the worship service. The kids, four-year-olds through 2nd graders, and their teachers sit on the floor in front…
Dana VanderLugtJanuary 24, 2020
For most of his life, my grandfather managed an apple orchard. We called it Grandpa’s Orchard, though technically the 200 acres of apples (plus 50-some acres of peaches, cherries, and plums) never really belonged to us, never belonged to Grandpa.…
Dana VanderLugtNovember 27, 2019
“Be more specific,” I used to tell my writing students. “Don’t say cereal when you could say Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Don’t say your character walked into the room when you could say he sauntered in. Don’t say you were reading…
Dana VanderLugtSeptember 21, 2019
I had to learn how to enjoy rollercoasters. I was a cautious kid, not one to take risks, and it wasn’t until high school that I remember walking off the platform of a rollercoaster with a smile on my face…
Dana VanderLugtAugust 21, 2019
Nothing is fair, reasonable or sensible about the unexpected death of a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend whose voice the world desperately needed. Yet Evans herself would remind us that the truest stories don’t end, that the best stories…
Dana VanderLugtMay 15, 2019
I remember a pastor once telling me that children who have an attachment item — a blankie, a teddy, a snuggly — are more likely to grow up to believe in God, to grow up to have faith.
Dana VanderLugtMay 4, 2019
