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The Sweetness that Comes When We Taste and See
For years, I’ve stared down pineapples at the grocery store, telling them that I’d enjoy them more if they’d just be a bit, you know,...
Marnie Hammar
Sep 8, 20202 min read


On Flourishing and Forcing
Late last summer, we planted a new hedge. Well, bushes that would grow together to form a sort of hedge-type thing, anyway. For almost a...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 24, 20202 min read


Finding Peace Even in Shifting Sands
I never thought I would buy face masks at Old Navy. Or sneak a side-eye at the current supply of toilet paper at Target. Or gravitate...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 20, 20202 min read


What I Learned from Being the Liar on the Playground
My mom took my brother and I to a park in a neighboring town that was much bigger than our little burg. I remember how its decorative,...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 18, 20203 min read


The Hope of Happy Endings
When I was a child, one of my favorite books had a hardbound gray linen cover with embossed gold lettering. Inside, bound in between the...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 11, 20202 min read


What You Need to Know About Superhero Capes
When my middle son was in preschool, one of the moms made a superhero cape and matching mask for each preschooler in the class. Every...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 4, 20203 min read


On the Legacy We Leave
This year, when we piled everything into the car for our vacation, we added all five sets of golf clubs. As much as I don’t love how much...
Marnie Hammar
Jul 28, 20202 min read


Lessons from an Ivy League Library
Once upon a time, I worked for an Ivy League university near Boston, where my job was to interview and write about students and faculty...
Marnie Hammar
Jul 17, 20204 min read


God's Work When Goals Sit Dormant
It’s been sitting there since March, its teal linen cover collecting dust, and its spiral-bound, tabbed pages stuck in the past. Every...
Marnie Hammar
Jul 10, 20202 min read


When God Shows Up in the Grocery Store Parking Lot
I saw her, but I didn’t really see her. I was loading my groceries into the back of my car, hurrying. It was almost dinner time and I...
Marnie Hammar
Jul 2, 20204 min read


The Ministry of the Ordinary
I feel it slipping away. Like an unstoppable tide, I see reopening arriving, and I fear what it will take with it as it rolls back out....
Marnie Hammar
Jul 2, 20202 min read


The Little Big Things We Share
I walked into my office and found a yellow sticky note with a tiny penciled apology from my nine-year-old. During “school” at home that...
Marnie Hammar
Jun 3, 20202 min read


Let Me Take and Eat
Every day they come, this family of deer that lives in the woods behind my very suburban house. They live in a small, narrow strip of...
Marnie Hammar
May 30, 20202 min read


The Beauty Inside This Chrysalis
As I look out the window—the view from which has become a gift—and see the sidewalks that connect to the places I remember, I feel torn....
Marnie Hammar
May 19, 20202 min read


On Longing and Abiding
[This post was featured over at The Joyful Life Magazine on May 15, 2020.] A year ago, my husband and I looked at each other over our...
Marnie Hammar
May 18, 20204 min read


On Being Overtaken
For this suburb dweller, the winding country roads I drove offered refreshing contrast to my side-walked, manicured normal, with their...
Marnie Hammar
Apr 18, 20202 min read


Lessons from Not Liking Birds
I don’t like birds. ⠀ ⠀ It’s a whole long tale that goes back to when I was 5 and there was a crow stuck under a bucket in my sandbox....
Marnie Hammar
Apr 16, 20202 min read


Still He Commands the Sun
I slowly walked through my local grocery store. After seeing that the toilet paper aisle was empty, I filled my cart with an attempt at...
Marnie Hammar
Apr 5, 20202 min read


Reclaimed, Not Perfect
When we chose the worn table that sits in our kitchen for sharing our family meals, we chose weathered barnwood beams that had lived a...
Marnie Hammar
Mar 31, 20202 min read


A Softer Way for Wounds
We stood at the kitchen island cutting vegetables for dinner when I looked down at my youngest’s hand and saw a weird, gray spot. I asked...
Marnie Hammar
Mar 22, 20202 min read
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