I thought I had it all under control. One day while we were living in Pennsylvania for part of our missionary training, I took the kids and went to WalMart for a supply run. The lady behind me in the checkout line saw me paying for fabric with my four daughters in tow and sporting …
Someone forgot to tell the flowers
I am working at my computer while my cat chews the cords and my son asks what’s for lunch and my husband walks by and kisses the top of my head. I am well rested because it’s a much shorter distance to my dining room table than my office across the river, and the gym …
this is my time, and these are my people
I wasn't born yesterday. I wasn't around when my ancestors left Ireland, Scotland, and Germany in search of something worth leaving everything. I'm glad I didn't have to pick a side during the Civil War, fighting with friends and family over more than social media. I'm thankful I missed out on those early days before …
I found myself somewhere spectacular
I don’t always know where I’m going, but I definitely know where I’ve been I have been to lots of places this year. I’ve shown up to some of the same old places, like work and church and the grocery store. I’ve gotten gas and run through drive-thrus and filled prescriptions. But a few times …
Survivors of the Healthy Hearts
There are those among us who have seen things – things we wish we had not seen – and we will never be the same. We walk around like everyone else. We go to work, buy our groceries, and wash our cars. But there is a pain that would glare as brightly as a neon …
Sometimes we get a front row seat
If there is no God, then who just bought my lunch? I had been having a bad week - well, more like a bad month - but all of a sudden, everything changed for the better in ways I never imagined. This doesn’t mean God is real. Nor does it mean things are …
dirty dishes piled high and appointments forgotten
I am sitting in a hospital waiting room, watching the TV monitor update me on the progress of my child. The color of his chart just changed to blue and a new word has appeared below his name. INCISION in Arial font point size 24. Someone is cutting my child. …
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the incredible weightless weight of my child’s child
I won’t be around forever. Someday I will be nothing more than a handful of memories shared on holidays, a dozen stories passed around the dinner table, and a hundred bedside prayers providing protection for years to come. But when I’m gone, there will be people in this world who will remember what my …
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bedbugs don’t make for a very happy birthday, even when they’re only in your imagination
My birthday was on Monday, but instead of waking up to breakfast in bed, I woke up to another day of dealing with bedbugs. I had spent the previous day with box of black garbage bags and a day's wages in quarters, transporting clothes from the bedrooms to the laundromat in an endless procession of …
What to do when you find yourself skidding
There are parts of my story I wish I could forget. Parts that still make me cringe, all these years later. Parts that just happened I might have avoided, only I never saw them coming because I was looking the other way for a moment too long. My life is like the Midwest in …
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Shaking My Dust 