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The Words Of A Father
I’m not sure if he knows it but every night while I am gathering the last things my family needs at the dinner table, I catch my husband lean over and whisper to our oldest son, Tell your mother, thank...
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Am I Doing Enough?
I know you know the days. The rising, eyes barely open at the first murmur of a child and one tiptoe in front of the other with them down the stairs as not to wake the others. You crack open your...
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Unraveling Grief
This very week, nineteen years ago I was riding in the front seat of our silver Town & Country minivan with my father manning the wheel. I stared out the window as we drove down Sycamore Creek...
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For My Kids On Mother’s Day
This week I have stood in the doorway to our home as the four of you rush in off the bus after school. The tiniest of you is not quite old enough to ride the bus home from school yet but hardly misses...
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Stop The Madness, It’s Summertime
I used to cry on the last day of school during my elementary days. And maybe I even got a little misty eyed as I walked out the front doors of Springboro High School and to my purple neon in the...
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The Terrible, Laughable and Humbling Places of Parenting
There are times when you see your kids shine in the same way you shine and you beam with pride. There are other times when your kids demonstrate undesirable behaviors like eat ashes from the fire pit...
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Thursday Night Refresh
I am very excited to talk bout something we have going on at our church on my blog. I never really talk specifically about church events on my blog but this new ministry is very personal to me and I...
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Step Away From The Cookie Dough
Breathe to reset. Accept that I am at the end of myself. Depend on something Greater than my feelings. And step away from the cookie dough. I was thirty-five hours in with fifty-two to go of my...
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One is Silver and the Other’s Gold
Years ago, I could not wait to turn eighteen, graduate and leave the childhood home I grew up in on Sycamore Creek Drive. I wanted a fresh start and I never wanted to look back. I had many happy...
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passionate. not terrible. passionate.
She sits there in her room, tiny plastic pieces of treasures, books, pink feather pens surround her, a crooked tiara on her head and streaks of orange marker are drawn on her leg from her kneecap to...
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when there isn’t much to say
Last night we sat in a booth adjacent to the high-topped bar table in the restaurant where we sat eleven years ago on the night when we were engaged. Then we were both getting to know each other and...
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I Miss Mayberry
Although I wanted to be a big city girl growing up, my story had me in a Mayberry kind of place during my youth. Everything was not in black and white by any means. My Mayberry was in technicolor with...
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What I Love About Sundays
Most of you know these things about me but for those of you who do not… it is important I catch you up on where I am in this chapter of the story God is writing for me. I have four young children. My...
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Am I Focused on the Smudges or the Sunshine?
Last week tucked in between rain and unseasonably cold temperatures we had two very pleasant days of warmth and sunshine in my little nook of the world. So often on these warm sunny days, I find myself...
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When X Marks the Spot
I have a child who enjoys drawing check marks on all of his drawings. To him, a check mark is his mark of approval on his drawing. If he feels good about a drawing, it gets a check mark at the top...
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Listening is Loving
Yesterday I was putting mountains of clothes away upstairs as I watched my three boys in the backyard below me digging in a large hole of mud. I had a report to give in about an hour and the babysitter...
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The Winding Up Tight
While the threads of my story do begin at birth just like every one else’s, the threads of this particular story do not begin at the very beginning at all. The threads of this story begin several years...
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Why We Can’t Stand Alone In Our Grief
I have many friends who have known me in my grief and many friends who have loved me in my grief. Friends who loved me when I was so guarded, I completely detached from the roots that make me uniquely...
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When The Plants Are Thirsty
It’s Sunday afternoon in my nook of the world and my husband is home from his work as lead pastor at the church just around the block from our home. He comes in and I see him, stretched and exhausted....
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A Mother Who Dwells
The bare soles of my feet are on the hardwood floors in the dining room, my hands are busy folding the third and fourth loads of laundry for the day, my son playing in the family room and my daughter...
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