Welcome friends to the first installment of So I Won’t Forget for 2026!
If you’re new toWe Have This Hope, you can find out what this is all about right here.
If you’re an OG (or my mom who happens to be the real OG), I’ll be keeping this introduction shorter than normal because I have a lot of words for you today.
These essays are the overflow of a grateful heart. I never finish writing them without being astounded by the goodness of God in my ordinary life. This is the consistent return for the spiritual discipline of remembering. I hope you’ll savor them as you read, laugh a little in between, and consider doing this work yourself.
Prefer to listen? Pop in your headphones and take me with you on a walk.
Read all the way to the end for an update on the podcast and an announcement about what’s coming next week!
#1…I Have a Dream cake
My eldest has an affinity for baking. I know what you’re thinking…what an adorable hobby! And you’d be correct because baking at age 11 does check a lot of boxes. It’s tech-free, creative, translatable to useful skills, delicious, and positions her in the center of the house while working independently. Sprinkle in a little math and it’s basically the unicorn of pre-teen hobbies.
When we were drowning in toddlers, people espoused to me the wonders of kids old enough to use the kitchen on their own and that’s turned out to be somewhat true. It’s quite nice when they can grab a snack, eat it on their own, and then throw the trash away—your only involvement is to affirm the whole process. That’s much better than wiping the floor underneath their high chairs for the umpteenth time, but what I found missing from all the laud about childhood kitchen independence was any warning about the cost by way of character development.
So dear reader, I will not perpetuate the myth that as children grow more independent in the kitchen they will not require your assistance. They will and it looks a lot like emotional coaching with a side of very clear verbal instructions. Results may vary, but I offer up a cautionary tale about a Nutella cake that cost me 5 hours and ended with the entirety of Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech. Parents of toddlers, consider yourself warned.
I found her in the kitchen donning an apron and a sidekick from across the street. When I inquired about the setup, she told me she wanted to bake a cake to share with neighbors on MLK Day. How could I possibly object to such a noble endeavor? I nodded along and snagged my iced coffee to sip while chatting with friends in the sunshine of my driveway.
Flash forward to a time later that evening when the sun was no longer shining and the cake was still not done. For unknown reasons, our top oven won’t reach temperature unless you chose specific buttons and if someone doesn’t know this, say the 11 year old baking a two layered cake, it can result in wildly different textures and colors. By 6PM we had one perfectly golden, rounded layer and one light beige and very dense layer. We also had an abundance of tears about the disparity between them. Cue the aforementioned emotional coaching.
Half an hour later and with much encouragement, she began tackling the Nutella-based icing while insisting that she did not, I repeat DID NOT, need any help from the adults. I learned shortly thereafter that the recipe had called for 24 ounces of salted butter which she melted in the microwave for slightly longer than recommended. More tears for her and deep breaths from me over this darling cake that appeared to be stealing our evening. Ever the hero in these situations, Dad stepped in to calmly demonstrate how to ice a two-layer cake even though I’m fairly confident he’s never actually done that before. And by 8PM the whole thing was heartily complete and resting under the shelter of a glass cake stand.
The next day she called the neighbors over for cake and stood proudly in the corner of our dining room holding a book she’d brought home from school. With an air of poised classroom teacher, she read slowly and deliberately while we ate, holding open the pictures for all to see in between each paragraph. Halfway through her reading, I realized she was sharing Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech word for word. This wasn’t just a cute picture book, this was his infamous speech peacefully calling out injustice and affirming the equality of all people made in the image of God.
When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
These hallowed words came out of my girl’s mouth while mine was full of Nutella and I wondered in my heart what compelled her to facilitate such a staunch reminder of Dr. King’s legacy. Was she parroting what she’d seen through teachers, neighbors, friends, and family? Was she responding to a nagging sense of justice that she seems to have accompanied her out of the womb? Or was the Spirit of God calling these beautiful sensibilities into the next phase of maturity, a phase that produces that perfect blend of gentleness and wisdom and measured action? Please let all the answers be yes.
When I set out to be officially laid-back about a cake that cost 5 hours with a side of my sanity, I hadn’t anticipated what I’d find on the other side of it. I mostly imagined that I was fostering confidence in the kitchen and encouraging creativity, but it was so much more than that. If I’d jumped in to rescue my mostly white kitchen, I might have missed my daughter rehearsing how to use her voice to speak truth in love, to name injustice, and to rally others to join her in these holy efforts.
I’m still finding remnants of splattered Nutella that I could begrudgingly wipe up while wondering about a day when I won’t have a kitchen filled with little creatives or I could count them the markings of a sacred space where people grow into maturity. In some seasons that maturity looks like how to balance a spoon all the way to your mouth and in other seasons, it looks like how to turn curiosity into overflowing compassion.
What a privilege to wipe the floor for all of them.
#2…How basketball teaches us to be human
We’re in the thick of basketball season at our house which mostly means calculating the time it takes to get from one rural Oklahoma town to the next. In a real life conversation a few weeks ago, I legitimately did not know what town I was in—somewhere that started with a C and was big enough to have an elementary basketball team, but otherwise no clue.
Basketball is a new sport to me. I never played growing up and didn’t pay much attention to it in a college or professional level either. March Madness wasn’t a thing around my girlie household, but I married a Kansas Jayhawk and that changed the basketball landscape for me going forward. Save the time Dustin finished a game standing on top of our coffee table blaring All I Do Is Win by DJ Khaled, I’d say we’re fairly laid back fans. We make brackets, snuggle up to watch fourth quarters, and play out in the cul-de-sac a little.
I’m the least qualified person to be chronicling the greatness of this game, but sometimes a mid-life convert can shed a fresh light on old things. We’re learning so much at our house through this fundamentally lovely game so allow me to indulge a few metaphors for the sake of remembering a formational and precious season.
* Pass…You cannot do it all on your own. Sometimes the only way to get the job done is to surrender to the help of another.
* Run…It’s one thing to be restful, but at some point our legs were made to run. Use speed at the right time and, for goodness sakes, don’t walk when you’re supposed to be running.
* Arms up…There are times when you’re still in something, but you’ve also done all you can. This is when you calculate your risk and simply have to go arms up. It’s anything but passive—it’s strategic and utterly important.
* Block…Defense wins championships so we’re told…set a boundary, be respectfully firm, and don’t compromise your values.
* Foul…Some are personal, some are technical. You’re allowed a few with a bit of grace, but there’s a limit for the safety of others and the purposes of the game. Forgive when you’re fouled. Extend a hand to the one you foul. And get back to work.
* Dribble…As is the case many times in life, you can’t skip certain steps or you’ll have to walk it all the way back. Pressing forward is not the same as barreling forward without a little skill. Don’t forget to look up.
* Get open…There’s always repetitive and important work to be doing even when you aren’t the center of attention. Stay curious, move around, and when the time is right, call for it.
#3…Not a book review
“Having and defending and celebrating the Bible instead of receiving, submitting to, and praying the Bible, masks an enormous amount of non-reading.”
- Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
This is not a book review.
It will be more akin to a love letter than anything else because twice now I’ve read it and twice now I’ve teared up at the urgency of it all. I closed its pages last week and, standing in our kitchen, emphatically told Dustin “We have GOT to read the Bible more” and I didn’t mean it in the way you’re likely thinking—more devotionals, more quiet times, more regularity out of rigor or duty.
I meant we need more of it like we need more vegetables. We need to eat more of it. Get it into our bodies and do the slow work of digesting and metabolizing it so that we are different people because of it.
I borrowed this metaphor, of course, from the book I’m about to espouse by the late and prolific Eugene Peterson. Most of us know him from his modern translation of the Bible called The Message, but too few of us know him for his other seemingly hidden works like Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.
“Language is not primarily informational but revelatory. The Holy Scriptures give witness to a living voice sounding variously as Father, Son and Spirit, addressing us personally and involving us personally as participants. This text is not words to be studied in the quiet preserves of a library, but a voice to be believed and loved and adored in workplace and playground, on the streets and in the kitchen. Receptivity is required.” - Eugene H. Peterson
I’ve yet to read anything else that articulates more beautifully an argument for reading the Scriptures in a way that is wholly personal and deeply transformational. Peterson borrows his own metaphor from chapter 10 of John’s Revelation when John attempts to write his vision on the scroll, but the angel instead tells him to eat it. His point in dissecting these strange verses is simply that our interaction with the Scriptures ought to be a lot like eating—savoring, processing, experiencing, ruminating, and ultimately coming back again and again as if our whole lives depended on it.
I find this to be such a comfort because it names reading Scripture as embodied work—in my view a much more compelling process than if it required intellect alone. In those seasons and moments when the Bible has astounded me, it has been less about the academics of it all and so much more about the way my insides were nourished. And because I’m in a season of academics, one where I am truly nerding-outabout the text, I need to cling to the reality that Rich Mullins so lyrically captured for us in the late 90s: “I did not make it. No, it is making me….”
If anything, may this essay live right here so when I re-read my own work, which I occasionally do, I’ll remember how much I love Peterson’s work and how much it felt like a hug from a mentor who put words to an experience that I couldn’t name.
Also, I hope you’ll read it and let me know what you think.
“Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.”- Eugene H. Peterson
Some of you have asked me about the We Have This Hope podcast this year and the short answer is that I’m not doing any interviews until later this year. Why? Because I’m in seminary and I’m a mom of 3 and both require me to be healthy.
For now, you can except monthly narrations of So I Won’t Forget if you just crave the sound of my voice or perhaps you’re simply more a listener than a reader. I get that.
Most importantly…next week I’m rolling out the first installment of a Stack Study on Proverbs. If you have questions or you’re interested in following along, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to fill in the gaps.
