@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 …
Choosing to Heal the Stress that Sprains Our Souls
I stumbled across a new definition of stress the other day. Stress, according to author Richard Carlson, is a sprain to the soul. Yes, yes, it is. There’s no denying we’re all stressed right now about too many things. Carlson’s perspective reframed my understanding of the life we’re all living – stretched out of emotional proportion by the coronavirus pandemic, …
Choosing Honesty and Hope for the Difficult Days
@bethvogt I struggled to write this blog post. For the better part of Tuesday, I thought I just wouldn’t write anything. The hours kept ticking away, and I kept tossing aside possible topics. And at ten o’clock Tuesday night I started typing words. Just how honest would I be? Life’s been hard the past few days – the kind of …
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 Do We Handle Life When We Feel Like We’re in Limbo?
I asked my friend, Casey, how she was doing with the extended stay-at-home order in Colorado Springs. “Hanging in there. Trusting God,” she said. “But limbo is a hard place to hang out in.” Yes, yes, it is. And that’s what’s wearing on all of us right now: we’re stuck in limbo, waiting for someone to set us free. The …
Coronavirus, Christmas, and Choosing Truth to Change Our Attitudes
Have you heard about people putting up their Christmas decorations during the coronavirus pandemic? I hadn’t considered hauling out my decorations and decking the halls – until yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I’m still adjusting to life in the midst of COVID-19. It’s a daily tug-of-war between my expectations and reality. Between my emotions and my faith. My …
Choosing to Face the Effects of Uncertainty
My youngest daughter, Christa, is home for spring break from college. Only it’s not the spring break she planned on. It’s not the spring break hundreds of thousands of college students planned on. After I wrote that last sentence my husband, Rob, Christa, and I paused to do some quick mental math and decided the sentence should read “millions …