What Kind of Eighty-Year-Old Do You Want to Be?
This week, a family member went through a traumatic medical event that hit very close to home. My husband and I talked in the kitchen after the girls were in bed, and I asked how we can possibly keep our
It Won’t Always Be This Way
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, I Pray the Lord My Soul to Keep, If I Should Fly Before I Wake, I Pray the Lord My Soul to Take. Tucking my three daughters and yours into the camper’s bunkbeds—head to foot, head to
Racing Toward the Finish Line
"And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1b Runners in skintight leggings and neon shoes pranced before the starting line like racehorses at the gate. Two men in their early twenties chatted while stretching. An
This Journey of Motherhood
For ten years, I have been a mother; in another ten years, my eldest will be twenty. I am not quite sure where the time has gone. Although, if I look back at the woman I was when I first
Why We Are Here
Seventy-eight years ago, the great grandmother—a slip of a girl in a dark cape dress—floated on her back in the middle of a wide green lake to keep from drowning, and that is why we are here. Sixty-seven years ago, her
Holding on to Everlasting Hope
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest: The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.” – Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man” I came in from
Fruit in the Barren Places
On New Year’s Eve, I sat in my living room and folded laundry while pondering 2021. I told my husband, sitting on the other couch, that it mostly just felt full of fruitlessness and loss. My brother-in-law, sister-in-law, nieces, and nephews
The Night We Almost Hit a Semi
It was after midnight when my husband asked, “Can you see that?” Lifting my gaze from the laptop screen, I peered through the windshield and saw a huge black rectangle lying across the interstate that was nearly indistinguishable from the darkness. I
Love and Toothpaste Tubes
Our three stairstep girls were in the back of the minivan as we drove to a friends’ house for supper. Collectively, I had labored thirty-eight hours to bring them into the world. I said, “Tomorrow’s Mother’s Day.” My husband groaned. “I knew you forgot.” He
My Child’s Grief Gave Me Permission to Feel
My six-year-old daughter wouldn’t touch the food on her plate. I asked what was wrong, but she shook her head. After clearing the table, I asked her to follow me back to our bedroom. Kindergarten can really wear her out, and