@bethvogt The Best We’ve Been, the third book in my Thatcher Sisters series, is a story about what happens when you lose control of your life. The book releases today, during the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. A time when it seems as if each one of us — no matter where we live, no matter our occupation or vocation, or where we …
Reading Between the Lines of the Serenity Prayer
@bethvogt (With acknowledgement to Reinhold Neibuhr (1892-1971), who wrote the Serenity Prayer.) God grant me the serenity Help me to stay calm. To not yell at my family no matter how much longer we’re quarantined together or say out loud all the snarky comments I’m thinking, even if I do think they’re funny. to accept the things I cannot change …
How Grief Shapes Us
My son-in-love, David, lost his mom when he was 10 years old. Losing your mom when you’re a young child? I see the faint flicker of his heartache in David’s eyes whenever he mentions his mom. All of us are familiar with the companionship of grief. Throughout our lives, we all must learn and relearn the halting steps of grief …
Love is a Choice We Make Every Day
Today’s blog post is pretty straightforward. With Valentine’s Day on Friday, I thought it would be fun to share a few quotes about love. “Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” Mother Teresa Now before you move on from this post because you’re not into all the forced, commercialized …
Realizing Stories Connect Us: Where Were You on September 11, 2001?
@bethvogt There are days that change a generation. That change the world forever. Days that are marked as “never to be forgotten.” Today is one of those days. On September 11, 2001 – 18 years ago – four U.S. commercial airplanes were hijacked in terrorist attacks on our country. A total of 2, 977 people were killed in New …
Grandmotherly Advice as You Start College — A Conversation with My Daughter and Her Mimaw
Guest Post by Christa Vogt Last weekend, my husband and I visited his 100-year-old mother. Our youngest daughter, Christa, came along to visit her “Mimaw,” since she leaves for college this week. When we arrived at the skilled nursing facility where Rob’s mom has been staying for the past two months (too long of a story for this blog post), …
Being Strong Enough to Abandon the Idea that We are Less Than Anyone Else
Most people don’t know I have a disability. Most days, I prefer it that way because I used to be afraid of how people would react. Today I decided to talk about it. About sixteen years ago, I was diagnosed with a hearing loss. I’d been frustrating my family with a lot of comments like “Huh?” and “What did …
Earthquakes, Aftershocks, and Choosing to Trust
@bethvogt I didn’t sleep last Friday. I stayed up all night long – by choice. It wasn’t all that difficult, considering I was in Colorado and my youngest daughter, Christa, was in California where there’d been not one, but two record-breaking earthquakes in a little over 24 hours. And let’s not consider the I-lost-cost-of-how-many aftershocks. I know staying awake all …
Who Do You Think You Are?
Learning to Value Ourselves More by @bethvogt I didn’t participate in school sports. Oh, sure, I played the required PE activities where you wait to get picked for a team, hoping you’re not last. And I remember the games of kickball and dodgeball during recess in elementary school – back when schools allowed kids to play dodgeball. Kicking a …
Identifying Unclaimed Emotional Baggage
Being Brave Enough to Deal with Our Stuff by @bethvogt Last weekend one of my closest friends texted me this question: When does all the baggage stop bubbling to the surface? Her question is a bit of a mixed metaphor, yes, but still it brought to mind a vivid image: a murky lake filled with suitcases bobbing to the the …