In the first year of our marriage, Dennis and I made an unintentional and yet very serious mistake, one that inflicted profound disappointment on two very important people. The rolling, repeating waves resulting from our mistake washed over onto us, too, and the drying out took longer than we ever imagined. Like most newlyweds Dennis […]

One spring, years ago now, Dennis and I watched other families experience all the celebratory festivities of a child’s senior year in high school: proms, award nights, graduation. But our daughter, a senior that year, had decided she was done with school. At 18, she knew she was not legally bound to us anymore. Six […]

A lesson I’m still learning, but understand more clearly with each decade of life, is that fixing my circumstances is rarely the answer to reducing stress.   The “whens” were a repeated refrain for me for decades, beginning when our children were all little. Life will be so much easier when she sleeps through the night, or when the littlest one […]

When our adopted daughter was in her late teens I was spent, not just by our journey with her but also from parenting all six of our children for so many years. In addition, my heart was wounded by the fallout and heartache, and my body was deeply fatigued from the burden of unrequited love. […]

When our six children entered middle school and the teen years my prayers for them increased in focus and intensity. In fact, I started two prayer groups of moms which met weekly during the school years on Monday mornings. In the first group we prayed for teachers, tests, and friendships. We prayed that our kids […]

We women know well that comparison is a constant nemesis.  But did you know that our daily measuring of ourselves has created a collage of ideals, an image of perfection, a phantom “me” within that can haunt us? One day I pulled a cute shirt out of the corner of our closet where my spring/summer […]