COULD :: Five-Minute Friday
COULD :: Five-Minute Friday

The word evokes possibilities. The often-quoted and ever-hopeful statement "She thought she could, so she did" comes to mind.

It's normal to get bogged down with a "couldn't" mindset. Heck, right now, it feels almost virtuous to meditate on all that we couldn't and shouldn't do. But what if we flip that mindset on its head? What do these constraints make possible? We know what we couldn't do, but what does that mean we could?

My daughter was supposed to be married in a big wedding in the middle of Fairfield County's famous dogwood blossoms on April 25. We couldn't hold that wedding. What we could do is hold a private ceremony with her dad, the priest officiating, and nine people watching from the empty sanctuary. We could invite friends to secretly decorate the newlyweds' car while we tried to reenact a somewhat sad replica of a wedding celebration with a miniature cake and cheap champagne. We could stand outside and blast confetti guns like a little revolt against the death droplets flying through the air.

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Five-Minute StoriesTamara Hill MurphyFamily
LOUD :: Five-Minute Friday
LOUD :: Five-Minute Friday

For someone who spends her life inviting people into the goodness of silence, I've lived a loud life. I try to explain this to people when I feel funny about moving away from the crowd or holing up in my bedroom for a few hours of alone time. I wish I had a card to pass out every time I'm feeling judged.

The card would read:

Tamara Murphy

  • oldest daughter of six

  • mother of four children who were at one time all ages six and under

  • wife of an extraordinarily energetic man

  • pastor's daughter turned pastor's wife

  • occasional city dweller

Give me a pass on any more noise, please!

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Five-Minute StoriesTamara Hill MurphySummer, finding Tamara
Mercy :: Five-Minute Friday
Mercy :: Five-Minute Friday

We've been calling it "silly good", as in God, you are being silly good.

The rental home in our dream neighborhood we found on a last-ditch effort last fall, the location for our church to worship after too many years being in an ill-fitting building, the ridiculously cheap airline tickets we found for our kids to attend my daughter's makeshift pandemic-era wedding in October, the acquisitions editor contacting me out of the blue to ask for book proposals, key vocational invitations pointing me toward my truest callings, some beautiful ministry relationships blooming from the most unexpected places.

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Five-Minute StoriesTamara Hill Murphy
Into Your Hands, I Commit My Spirit by Kimberly McHugh [Retrieve Lament 2020]
Into Your Hands, I Commit My Spirit by Kimberly McHugh [Retrieve Lament 2020]

My grandson lived; he lived for 6 ½ years. We got to know him and love him deeply. I spent many hours leaning over a hospital bed, watching him, and praying for him. We exchanged goofy face pics and sweet voice messages from long distances. He called me Nana, and I can still hear his voice saying, Naa naaa’, in his slightly reproachful tone and grinning face, in response to something silly I did. I wear a shirt he loved because it has rhinestones and sequin embroidery and I can still feel his hands tracing the letters of “Istanbul” on my shirt. And then, quite suddenly Yahya died. I stood by my daughter’s side as she and her husband buried his ashes. …

Where is that peace that passes understanding, where are you, God? And I long for what ancients say can come after the wall: to know God’s sweetness and love, to have peace and rest, and a deep inner stillness. I am almost ready again to say, “Into your hands I commend my spirit”, and I believe when I do, I will pass through the wall to a sweeter knowledge of Him.

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Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill MurphyRetrieve Lament 2020, guest post, grief, holy week, Wholeness & Healing, Into your hands I commit my spirit