Mothering Mother, Part 1
For the next few posts, I will be raising the shades of a window. The view, at first, might look bleak. I pray you’ll follow to the end, because it’s happy and I believe, like me, you will find great blessing in the whole picture. “If there’s anything here you want, you’d better take it […]
The Muck and the Green
So yesterday’s post sent me spinning, whirling around like the cottonwood white I dodged while on my country road walk. “Nobody wants to hear from you,” came haunting from old mother-places left long ago. But when a new voice, the One who calls and your heart hears loud and clear what your ears can’t . […]
Broken for Good
How can a good God allow bad things to happen to good people? I’ve heard this question posed by numerous people over the years. I’ve asked God the same question. Who’s “good”? What’s “bad”? Summing up nearly 54 years of much “good” and a whole lot of “bad” in my own life, here’s what I […]
Holding Hope
Where do I start? Last week started with our 21 year old daughter being accosted in a parking lot and a police report being filed. The next day our 19 year old son stomped out with suitcase in hand because he was tired of our rules. (He came back shortly.) My husband was gone to […]
Merit Badges
Husband and son are at Boy Scout camp for the week, getting dirty, having fun, and working on merit badges. Boy Scouts is big on goal-setting and achievement. Scouts measure achievement and advance rank by earning merit badges. Each merit badge has a list of specifications for achievement requiring learning and performing some particular skill […]
Turtles and Grapes
Rome wasn’t built in a day, the saying goes. Big accomplishments always start small. But sometimes it’s hard to accept my smallness when I’ve got my eyes on others’ bigness. And it’s easy to stop taking steps forward when we don’t know exactly where we’re going. Growth hurts. Is it worth the pain? I’m struggling […]
Off My Rocker
Our second child is now three months shy of twenty. He has secured his first full-time job with benefits. Like most twenty-year-olds, he thinks he knows most everything—or at least he ACTS like he knows most everything. And though he’s still living at home, with all the home field advantage, he thinks he should be […]
Snakes and Doves
What I feared came to pass Sunday night, Father’s Day, when her father was out of town and only her mother was here to deal. Our daughter was accosted by a man in a parking lot near her apartment. What do parents do when they have raised a young lady to be Christ-like? When […]
Gritty Good
Father’s Day. The family room is strewn with clothes folded and set in piles alongside flashlights and bug spray and sunscreen and everything else one needs for a week-long outdoor adventure. Father and son are engaged in last-minute preparations right before leaving to meet a dozen or so other Boy Scouts and leaders heading north […]
Shipwrecks
Some write what others want to hear. Some write to help others feel good. And some write words so offensive to popular culture that they are either ignored or persecuted. Times haven’t changed because people haven’t changed. The prophets of old won no popularity contests. They probably didn’t love their job assignments because what they […]
Mountains and Pumpkins
“How did you get to be so wise?” he asked. The question startled me. Wise? I don’t think of myself as wise. If anything, I’m so aware of my flaws and inner ignorance about what really matters that I often wonder what I really have to offer anyone that’s worthwhile. Through the course of life, […]
Get Peace
“Do not worry . . .” Jesus says it, those three little words, ten letters in the English language. And He says it often. Sounds so commanding. Why would Jesus command us not to worry? Because we DO worry and because worry steals and kills—two things Jesus does not want for those He loves. Worry […]