I love musicals. As a young single mom, I spent many rainy afternoons snuggled close with my oldest daughter as we watched “singing and dancing” movies like “Newsies,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” and ”The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” Many films simply stirred joy, but “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” carried all my favorite story ingredients: an underdog, an unlikely…
Rain drove me to the desert. Years of rain, actually. I’d grown up under gray Midwestern skies that lasted weeks in a row during winter and spring. And fall. Recess was soggy grass and slick playgrounds, a purple raincoat and foggy glasses. At fourteen, we moved to the sunshine state where humidity would collect in…
A few years back, I accompanied my twin daughters along with the rest of their grade school class on a field trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I had plans to explore and engage in hands-on experiences, so when we were immediately ushered into the auditorium to watch a 3D film about…
My husband has many way-of-life habits and practices that help him to stay focused, organized and productive. I have very few of those habits. But I do have some way-of-life practices that keep me following close and hard after Jesus. I would love to tell you these practices have been easy for me, but I’m…
I sit mulling over my to-do list for the day. Wash two loads of laundry. Hem daughter’s dress pants for her internship. Buy gift for nephew’s birthday and teleport back two days ago to get it in the mail to him on time. The usual stuff. My pen is still poised over the paper when…
Have you ever met someone and thought: this person will certainly go places! While in college, many of my fellow students impressed me with their talent. But one particular classmate made me sit up and take notice. We both majored in music and sang in the same choir, but this woman also had theatrical talent….
Dear Reader, A little more than five years ago, I stepped into a few major transitions in my life. My youngest child graduated from the parent-involved K-8 school where our family had been heavily involved for 15 years with all three of our children. I left the staff of the missionary organization I had been…
Diapers and 2 a.m. feedings. Car seats and Legos. Preschool and playdates. These things filled my early days of parenting. I had longed for motherhood, so I embraced the busyness along with the joy. As my children grew, things became even more hectic. My husband and I decided to homeschool our two children, so as…
Are you experiencing the tension of transition? Waiting in the “already/not yet” space of leaving what was and not yet realizing what will be? Many refer to this place as the hallway between closed and not-yet-open doors. Although times of transition can be stressful, scary, and secluded, God wants to meet us here. Learn the…
“Get comfortable being uncomfortable,” says the artwork hanging on my living room wall. The words sit within a tangle of orange squiggles. Whether or not the artist, Hugh McLeod, meant for the squiggles to represent the jumbled feelings that come when life takes a different direction, they do for me. Relocations have been those transitions….
Thomas stayed. The other disciples saw Jesus. Experienced him. He was before them, in the flesh. But Thomas missed it. And as his friends recounted the story of seeing their Lord, Thomas couldn’t believe that Jesus had risen. He had been with Jesus, watching the miraculous. But this was too much. Whether his grief from…
Changing jobs during the pandemic wasn’t part of my plan. But like millions of other women, I found myself leaving familiar territory and learning to navigate new skills and new terrain. And at times, this new space has felt like a disorienting wilderness. Even though I haven’t moved to a new location, other factors relating…
Transition is not easy. I’d like to think that I’ve mastered it after living abroad for 5 years, spending a year traveling all over internationally, and then a year moving across the United States—in which I moved every 4-7 days, visited more than 100 cities in 33 states, and stayed with as many hosts (as…
Transition could be my middle name. I was a Third Culture Kid (TCK) for the first half of my life and became an immigrant in the second. Born in one place, educated in another, and transplanted once more right in the middle of life–on my way over the hill–to yet another geography. Life has felt…