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
We Dare
How dare we encourage children to play on the earth’s thin crust beneath which molten lava churns and cracked plates shift and trees—tacked down by roots like those belonging to rotten teeth—drop widowmaker branches upon the drive where my children
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
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
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
Life Between Hurricanes
When we arrived on Monday, Orange Beach had just reopened after the intense cleanup following Hurricane Sally. On Tuesday, the Alabama governor declared a mandatory tourist evacuation due to Hurricane Delta churning toward the coast. I was too busy digging for
Ode to a Bygone Era
Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of extra money for vacations, so we would visit state parks, which were free. Our favorite was Lake Barkley in Cadiz, Kentucky. About four times a year we would rent a cabin for