Oh, there are so many ways I could go with this blog post. Has life surprised me? Oh yes, yes indeed. I just went upstairs and kissed goodnight one of the most a-ma-zing surprises in my life: my caboose kiddo. The child who astounded me by showing up when my husband and I were parenting three teenagers. True story: My …
In Others’ Words: If …
Sometimes it’s good to go back to the anchor truths that hold me steady. The faith-realities — no contradiction there — that I turn to over and over again when doubt whispers in my ear or failure taunts me or an invisible someone insists I’m not good enough. God is with me. His very name is Immanuel, God with us …
In Others’ Words: Blocked
Have you been dreaming lately? I’m not talking about the now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep kind of dreaming. No. I’m talking about the eyes-wide-open dreams. The ones requiring planning. And effort. And waiting. And praying. Those kind of dreams. If you’d asked me if dreams involved hope, I would have said “Yes, absolutely” without pausing to think about. Dreams demand massive amounts of hope. …
In Others’ Words: Best
It’s Monday and I’m staring down my week. There’s so much I want to give my best to: my relationships, my writing — me, even, when I think about my health. Sometimes I spend part of one week thinking about what’s going to happen next week. A deadline looms over every day leading up to the due date. I’m living …
In Others’ Words: Wired
So … are you waiting? Or are you on the wire? What gets you off the platform of “safe” and out on the wire, risking it all? Life is being on the wire — are you? Click to Tweet Are you waiting or living? Click to Tweet
In Others’ Words: Fall
I took karate a number of years ago — okay, a lot of years ago. It’s how I met my husband. He swept me off my feet in a karate studio. To be completely honest, he knocked me down. Yeah, so romantic. But here’s the point: In karate, you’re taught how to fall. You practice falling down and getting back …
In Others’ Words: Making Plans (Guest post by Author Cynthia Ruchti)
One of the pieces of “sage” wisdom—which is different from hunter green or celadon, as we all know, and not even close to kiwi—that I give young moms is “Write your schedule on your calendar in pencil. That way it won’t be so annoying when you have to erase it because of the kids’ flu/ear infection/pink eye/head lice/field trip/allergy appointment/soccer …
In Others’ Words: Do You Hear What I Hear?
I wouldn’t say I never listen. But there have been times when I haven’t listened. Sometimes it was a case of tuning someone out — yes, deliberately — because I didn’t want to hear what was being said. Sometimes it was exhaustion, pure and simple. And sometimes I didn’t realize my attention had wandered until something — a question maybe, …
In Others’ Words: Everything … or Nothing (& Contest Winner!)
I’m all for going for the win. For not giving up. For try, try, trying again. But I’ve learned a hard lesson — a life lesson that’s shaped me even as it broke me — that all the “try” in the universe doesn’t always get you what you want. Or who you want. And sometimes, along the way, you lose …
In Others’ Words: Compassion
Let’s end the week with a bit of hope, shall we? And there is an abundance of hope in Lisa Harper’s statement. Compassion encompassing mistakes … even more, Christ’s miraculous compassion obliterating my worst mistake. So much hope. How can I grasp it? Sometimes I forget this unfathomable truth. I forget the amazing should-bring-me-to-my-knees reality that I am forgiven. That …