Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

A meditation for Thursday of Holy Week. I wrote this as a part of our church's weekly encouragement during the time that we are apart. This is Holy Week. On Sunday we watched Jesus riding on a donkey into Jerusalem, welcomed like a king, a much anticipated hero. As the week continued we saw him healing many, making parables from fig trees, and clearing the temple of those who sought a profit there. Embarrassed followers and skeptics watched as a woman dropped in on a dinner party and poured oil over Jesus's head, "preparing me for my burial," he explained, perhaps bringing up more questions to the bewildered and disgusted guests.  The plot against Jesus had been coalescing day by day, and so we find ourselves at Thursday--often called Loving Thursday when Jesus, "having loved his own who were in the world, now showed them the full extent of his love." (John 13:1) There's one disciple that we can zoom in on, and in fact his antics and qu...

A foundation of our early homeschooling journey was reading on the couch and talking about books. The length of the books grew with the children's attention spans, but there was usually a good mix of picture books and chapter books. My kids are three and a half years apart, so if Henry at age 18 months wasn't sitting next to us on the couch and along for the ride, he was on the floor playing or up in his room napping. Lessons had to be in short snatches because we did have a little interrupter. Reading and writing are the gateway to the world! Use this time to establish or strengthen their reading and writing foundation with a few simple things that can apply to all subjects-- 1. Read! Read good books, books that have intriguing words and deep characters. Read aloud to your kids and when you finish the chapter, ask them to retell, or narrate, the story back to you.  2. Narration-- Write down the narration word for word that your child tells you then read it back to the...

I asked my children for some homeschool highlights to share with friends and family who are looking for ideas. Pretty much simultaneously a picture popped up on my computer of my kids doing cave paintings way back when. So here's a little bit about that--a quick post and a few ideas. This idea is from Susan Wise Bauer in her book and activity guide, Story of the World, volume 1. I loved these books--a great way to introduce history to first through fourth graders and beyond. You can find them on Amazon or at  https://welltrainedmind.com/ So if you can get a hold of those books, I recommend them.  I'll share in another post how you can use that book for a whole morning's worth of reading, writing, history, and maybe even science if you can get into it . . . For now, cave paintings. Humans have painted in caves over thousands of years and there are many different examples you can see online.  Google cave paintings, or check out this awesome link to learn ...

I tried to tell the Christmas story to my ESL class the other night. My starting point was the carol, Away in a Manger. I figured it would have fewer difficult words than other favorite carols: Hark the herald angels sing . . .mercy mild . . .reconciled . . .O come Immanuel. . . ransom captive Israel . .  I explained manger and hay and then found myself talking about a baby, God's son, placed in a feed box. A place that animals eat from. As a child I had thought that manger was another word for cradle—why else would you put a baby inside it?  Perhaps I should've stopped right there and asked someone in my class to retell the strange story so far.  Later in the evening each ESL class performed skits, and then we all feasted on ham and festive foods brought by teachers and students. As we began cleaning up I saw one of my students waiting by the door. She had told me she was leaving but then I saw her waiting so I asked her, "Do you need a ride home?" ...

It's raining on this second Tuesday of Advent. Our dog paces nervously, as though she's endured a flood and expects another. She settles now on the rug at the foot of my bed, and I settle too, as though the rain is running through me, softening worn joints, loosening tight ligaments.  Water runs down and fills the rain barrel, the drops amplified by the cavernous space. This is winter in southeast Texas—one day 75 degrees, the next 53 and getting colder—the rain and wind are signs of change. A rainy day is, I think, good for Advent. The steady rain makes me contemplative as it runs along the gutter, through the downspout and into the rain barrel. Reminding me of the never failing presence and truth of God's word. Refreshing. And sometimes overpowering. On a rainy day I tend to have one of two mindsets, and yes, I've had both. Some days I fuss and complain that the rain is obstructing my plans, stressing out the dog (which stresses out me), making traffic ...

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. . .We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Romans 8:18, 22-24 Late teenage years— I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, my hand fidgeting with the blue bedspread bedecked with peach and pink flowers. My mom sits at the foot of the bed. I'm puzzling over this passage from the book of Romans that I'm sure I've read before, but is suddenly vivid. Life has gotten scarier. My older brother Tim is down the hall at the other end of the house, his arm in a cast and other bones still healing—his pelvis among them. He'd done something stupid—aided by alcohol, the urging of friends, and his own ri...

In each house we lived in growing up, I always knew where the photo albums were. In the house on Snag Lane in Spring, Texas they were in the wood-paneled living room, in one of the many built-in cabinets.  I could pull out the albums and wedge myself between the orange couch and the cabinets, leafing through memories. I would usually set aside the large album with paper pages and a blue and teal cloth cover.  This one held my parents’ wedding pictures, which I didn’t quite value at the time.  The photographs were black and white after all.  My favorites were an album with a cover that looked like basket weave, and one that had a slightly blurry close-up of white flowers on a background of leaves and stems. The photos were held down firmly on sticky pages underneath clear film.   Turning the pages was time travel—sometimes to moments remembered only in photos, others, to glimpses of events well-remembered. There’s one of a naughty two-year old me, try...