I feel sad, and I don’t want to feel sad. My husband and I have begun a conversation about moving from the neighborhood and the town where we have spent decades. Rather than feeling sad, I want to focus my emotional energy on the joys of new opportunities and new...
Dear Friends— I’m sending this email to you to ask you to pray for our family. We have recently discovered that my mom has Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. At the moment she is in New York with my younger brother. On Tuesday I will join them in New York. Then on Saturday I...
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” Mary Schmich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune (June 1, 1997) wrote that advice to newly graduated students. Even though I graduated decades ago, something about that quotation stuck in my heart. I ruminated on it for days....
“Ssh! Don’t talk about it. Especially in church!” I once attended a Bible study with a small group of women who loved God deeply, knew the Bible well and had worked as hard as anyone could at motherhood, and yet eight out of 10 of us had children who had walked away...
In early November 2005 my mom began a journey that changed us both. She got into her little car and began to drive to Denver International Airport, 60 miles from her home, a route she had driven thousands of times during her 69 years. But this time she faced a...
Back in December I made a mistake. I’m sure I made more than one, but this one hit me on the head. Every December for many years I have spent one evening out with a group of friends. We exchange gifts, talk about the year past and the year coming. We laugh. And...
Think about your good friends. How many conversations have you had over the last year? How many events have you attended together? In each conversation or at each event, you learned a bit more about your friend, right? Prayer, at its core, is a relationship-building...
Imagine a strawberry cheesecake without cream cheese. Or brownies cooked without oil. (Hint: they will look normal but actually be as hard as bricks. Trust me.) So, what ingredients make friendships delicious? And if omitted would leave them bland and hard to swallow?...
Depression. Great opening line, don’t you think? Pulls you right in. Makes you want to keep reading. No? In the last week alone, I’ve talked with three different women about this topic. And I must say that I LOVE talking about it. Weird, right?! Honestly, I would be...
For many of you, today will involve visiting a grave. Others of you may not visit a grave but your mind will wander back to memories of a loved one now gone from this earth. As I’ve talked with some of you who have recently lost a loved one, I hear the ache in your...
