Jesus – Lauri Hawley

Discovering Life’s Unexpected Joys in 2025

This is our first winter in our new home in the mountains, and we’ve moved far enough away from the ocean that it no longer softens the winter chill. Temperatures have regularly dropped below freezing, and watching what happens in the perennial garden has been fun!

Sharing Your Story: Adding Harmony to Faith

Our family visited the city for a candlelight concert a few days before Christmas. We had a wonderful time listening to a string quartet play many familiar holiday songs by candlelight!

Discovering Holiday Joy: Nature’s Ice Needles

What I saw last week is in my top ten list of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It was a few days after my last foggy post, when we had almost three and a half inches of rain. The temperature had dropped to highs below freezing over the next several days, with lows in the teens. Look at what I discovered in the ground!

Experiencing Love in Everyday Moments

I drove to have coffee with a friend a few days ago. Snow was still on the ground from several days before, but this day was warm and drizzly. I passed through a few thick patches of fog on my way through the hills. I was struck by all the phases of water I was seeing at the same time through the windshield: solid snow banks and icicles clinging to the side of rocky cliffs, banks of fog barely pierced by my headlights, and wet drizzle pelting the windows.

Experiencing Peace: From Snowflakes to Spirituality

We only had to wait a few days after my last post for a good snowfall! The peace of a snowy morning always amazes me. The spaces between the snow crystals absorb sound, muting the regular noises of the neighborhood.

Hope’s Aim

It has been a year and two days since I last wrote a blog post, but that doesn’t mean I’ve fallen off the face of the earth! Life has been full of changes, including a good deal of reading and writing for my master’s program. This month falls between semesters, so I’d like to visit with you a few times over the next several weeks.