What Your Purpose Is Not

September 5, 2015.Reading time 5 minutes.

Purpose. No topic is too big for the #wholemamas. Follow us over at Erika Shirk’s Overflow blog. By Amanda Cleary Eastep Every night I take it to bed with me, wake up with it, and feel it breathing down my neck when I’m not giving enough attention to it. (No, it isn’t an overly affectionate labrador.) It’s my […]

How to Pray Like a Refugee

July 16, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep From out of the desert of Africa, my daughter brings home the custom of praying with your eyes open and your hands held out, palms up, as if you are just that expectant, that trusting, that bold. The first evening she is back at our house church after five months of perspective […]

Moving into Your Discomfort: When you are asking What’s Next?

May 26, 2015.Reading time 7 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep What’s next? It’s a year of transition for my family. High school and college graduations, a wedding, and a potential job change. And, for me, a sense of an impending–I hesitate to use the word–molting. (Ew, I know.) I’m shedding the skin of the first half of my life…kids grown, resume a solid […]

You wouldn’t believe the stars

April 28, 2015.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep “You wouldn’t believe the stars.” My daughter tells me this in one of her voice messages from the refugee camp in north Africa. She and her friend had dragged their bedding out onto the desert sand, staying up until 2 a.m. as if this was some junior high sleepover, chatting and “wow”ing and awestruck. We live 30 […]

Are we still gazing up at the clouds?

April 6, 2015.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep Easter Day 2015 I have one raw egg in the fridge. My youngest is at a missionary camp in Florida. My other daughter and son are at their dad’s girlfriend’s for the first time. These things don’t negate the fact that it is Easter, and the sun is shining. But I […]

The Year of Living Courageously

March 5, 2015.Reading time 6 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep I’m a little afraid to write the words. Be. Courageous. Writing those words in my journal means I can’t tell God it was only a fleeting thought. That I was “writing drunk,” as Hemingway said, and planned to edit sober later. And I can’t blame someone else. No one’s handwriting is that bad. But it’s […]

Don’t quit…just keep hanging your mantle in the sun

January 14, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep I think about quitting. Letting go of writing like it’s some wild mammal I’ve tried to raise and train only to have it piss on the furniture and snap at my hand when I try to feed it. But who would I be if I didn’t write? I have announced, “I am a writer” […]

Surprised by April and Sharp Turns

December 23, 2014.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep The ground is confused and awakening groggily, because it is too warm today for December. All those organisms aroused by the surprise of sunshine and high 40s stir, unaware that their future holds a predicted “swath” of 3-6 inches of snow that will unravel a 3-6 inch ribbon of white across northern […]

Peace Is Giving Me that Look

December 8, 2014.Reading time 5 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep “You have that look.“ My daughter says this as we hold each other in an embrace that sighs, “Don’t leave home,” and responds, “I have to go.” She’s taken to glancing sideways at me when we hug to make sure I’m not crying. I am on the inside. Wailing like a mad […]

The Advent of Impact

November 30, 2014.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep We are parked in the middle of a dark road in the Wisconsin countryside on our way home from my first ever grown-up New Year’s Eve party in my cousins’ basement. Cousin #1 is wondering why cousin #2, who may have sucked down a few too many Pabst Blue Ribbons, isn’t behind us […]