I woke to a beautiful scene outside my window—a quintessential New England winter day complete with snow-covered trees and a gentle hush of peace. I lay there a moment, welcoming the peace as it seeped into my weary bones. Grabbing the warmest sweatshirt I could find, I stepped around furniture not yet nestled in its…
Throughout my 27-year marriage, my husband has encouraged me to get away at least once a year. I typically drive to a friend’s cottage, heavy laden with more books than any human could possibly get through in three days and spend my time reading, walking along the beach and praying. It restores my soul and…
I had left the room for a few minutes when my mother died. It was 1999, and I was a young mom with three little boys—a young mom who desperately needed the help and support of her mother. But that’s not the way things worked out. At just 58 years of age, my mother’s life…
I was stuck. In the most giving season of my life—raising teenage children, caring for my mother with Alzheimer’s in my home—I was stuck. Wedged in a pit of self. Patience wore like a thin wall. Anger ignited like a wildfire. Sleep eluded like a shadow. My teenage children labeled it “The Dark Ages.” The…
“The Lord be with you,” I proclaim to begin a class. “And also with you,” the students answer. We follow this greeting by responsively reading a psalm aloud. My class at a Christian university meets only three times a week and reads only one psalm each time, but I’m hopeful. Even if we’re skipping down…
Nature doesn’t always wait for us to hand over our toys. Sometimes, she takes them away without our permission. When I was 16, I memorized a poem that struck me even then with its poignant truth about the cycle of life. In his poem “Nature,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) compares nature to a loving mother…
Courage whispered the autumn leaf He, born of spring’s budding hope commissioned for summer’s verdancy yet most glorious in decline Courage urged the autumn leaf As he, in trust and gratitude…
A while ago, my mentor challenged me to think about what might happen after I die—more specifically, what heaven might look like. Although middle-aged, I never pondered this mystery before. When I was young, I saw myself as indestructible, protected by the solid shell of my own energy and the strength of naivete. Now, I…
The red light on our answering machine blinked. We had just returned home from an evening children’s Christmas program, joyful in the spirit of the holiday. But my mood suddenly changed when I pressed the button on the machine and heard my mother’s voice, “We had to take Dad to the hospital. It looks serious….
I looked down at her hands, worn by so many years of labor. They seemed mostly of bone now, the fat and muscle mostly gone and the skin like a rag, twisted and stretched until it can never return to its original form. And, yet, they were beautiful to me. I spent much time looking…
It hits me how this mirrors parenting. Lately, I have been paddling hard, telling my kids where they’re off track and how they need to change what they’re doing. I tire myself this way. Instead, I should simply set my paddle in, fixed on what I know God is asking of them — of me…
Despite nearly two years of therapy, when our adopted daughter, Ruth, turned 3, she displayed the physical abilities of an infant. Once, during a rare family dinner at a local diner, Ruth, who had cerebral palsy and was deaf, raised her fisted hand to click a spoon against her teeth. “Did you see that?” I…
I have a complicated relationship with parenting books. As a new mother, I read all the books, analyzed all the angles, second-guessed all the decisions, and the only thing that saved my sanity is that Google had not yet been invented. That tightrope walk persisted for years until I learned to view the books with…
A few weeks ago, my middle daughter asked to go to a local trampoline park as a family for her 7th birthday. We arrived at the facility, signed the hundreds of pages of waivers (I exaggerate only slightly), herded the children to a table, stashed shoes in cubbies and pulled on jump socks with rubbery…