Recovery & Coronavirus Quarantine: Life in the Post-Injury Twilight Zone
It’s been 17 days since I broke my leg in three places. It’s also been 1,118,681,654 years since this virus quarantine stuff started. At least that’s how it feels.
Personal and Spiritual Ramblings
What does a “mommy blog” have to do with local church ministry?
Our local church is hosting a missions conference unlike any missions conferences I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot). The “Grace on Mission Conference” is running for the entire month of March, and this is what it’s all about: As part of this conference, members of our local church are presenting the para-church ministries … [Read more…]
Order in the Mess: Bearing God’s Image as a Type-A Homemaker
I am made in the image of God, and that is beautiful. Every person has within him or her the image of God. It is our role…our job as His creation to bear that image well and show that image to those around us. Order is part of God’s personality. When I lean in to those parts of myself that He created, I am demonstrating that part of Him in my life. Whether you are a “type A mama” or disorganized, beautiful mess, I pray that you feel God’s love upon your life and find ways to bear His beautiful image in your personality.
Love in the Deep End: A Star is Born
A deep and broken love…a star is born. Not the star of a woman thrust into fame, but the star of sacrificial love that burned bright because a woman gave herself away by loving in the deep end. I want to love like that.
Healed Wounds {Grandma’s Funeral & My Trip to My Ohio Hometown}
This is the moment everything up til this moment formed into this realization of healing. Because not once during the last few days had I been triggered. Not one hymn. Not one shudder induced by a smell or a sight. No anger. No pain. No regret. Just genuine gratitude and bittersweet joy for my family, for my grandma’s prayers, for the good old hymns, for each and every last memory.
Beauty in the {Homeschooling} Mess: The Family that Learns Together
This transformation – I don’t even really have a way to describe it. I can ONLY credit it to an AMAZING God who has blessed me with this opportunity and given me the desire (when I had absolutely NO desire to homeschool), the strength, and the resources to accomplish this. I’m not this homeschooling, chore-doing, love-spending-time-with-my-kiddos person. I’m not. But He is bigger than my inadequacies and is renewing my heart day by day for this role.
Compost piles, faith deconstruction, and Joshua Harris
Maybe you have looked up to people like Rachel Held Evans and Joshua Harris. I know that I did. Maybe their deconstruction stories have shaken your faith. Maybe you wonder if faith deconstruction is for you. Maybe you are ready to walk away from it all. It’s tempting to take a hacksaw to your faith, dump the remains in the yard waste cart, and wipe your hands of it all as the city utility workers haul it all away. But I urge you: build a compost pile. Stay. Please stay. Because the tree grows on the fallen forest. If it died, it can live again.
Homeschooling special needs: a story of transformation
This morning, I walked into Ezra’s school and informed his principal we will be homeschooling next year.
Talk about one of the most terrifying moments of my life…
I could sit here and write 2000+ words about the steps that rapidly led up to this decision, the multitude of reasons as to why we feel like homeschooling is the best choice, the curriculum we are looking at, and the plans that we have. But none of that really matters, nor is it really anyone’s business.
That said, I feel that what I MUST chronicle is the transformation that has taken place in my heart and mind over the last week that I can only attribute to a miraculous act of God.
Still Messy…Still Beautiful {the rebrand that’s not really a rebrand}
But isn’t that the point, really? Because you can brand a website, but you can’t brand your life. You can create a style sheet for your blog, but you can’t create a style sheet for your kids. They are gonna be who they are and do what they are going to do, regardless of the perfect plans you have for them. Because God knows what He’s doing way more than we do. And He’s making something beautiful out of our messy life. Beautiful…messy…motherhood…marriage…faith…life. It’s still messy. It’s still beautiful. Beautiful…in His time. That’s what it’s always been. That’s what it will always be.
Our Eleventh Anniversary: Musings & a Marriage Playlist
It’s 4:38 a.m. and I’m awoken by a child who needs his nightlight fixed…and a snack. When I crawl back into bed a few moments later, I breathe a sigh and lay my leg to rest across the back of my husband’s calf. He sleeps on his stomach, yet even in his sleep, we somehow … [Read more…]