When You Love a Prodigal: Turning Curses into Blessings

When You Love a Prodigal: Turning Curses into Blessings

Life is hard for a prodigal. Their lives are filled with fear, failure and frustration. Yes, much of it is of their own making. Those who love a prodigal are also filled with fear, failure and frustration. In their efforts to rescue and restore those loved wanderers, they practice tough love, they set strict boundaries,…

Trust God and Land Your Helicopter
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Trust God and Land Your Helicopter

We’ve all heard news stories about “free-range children,” those unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on who you ask) children who are allowed to BE OUTSIDE WITHOUT THEIR PARENTS! One news story involved 6- and 10-year-old siblings. Their parents dropped them at a nearby park with instructions to be home for dinner at 6:00 p.m. When 6:00…

Social Stresses

Social Stresses

When I was the proud mother of a newborn, a two-year-old and a four-year-old, I thought parenting couldn’t get any tougher. Every day was a blur of caretaking, feeding and physical lifting. Merely strapping the three kids in the car ate up 10 minutes, and this was after the 20-minute prelude of coats and shoes….

The Pain of Hoping
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The Pain of Hoping

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12 Heather Jo sits in her eighth grade home economics class sewing a pillow. The shape is uneven and the stuffing bulky, so she decides to rip open the seams and try again. She knows that if she keeps…

Teach More Than a “Try Harder” Faith

Teach More Than a “Try Harder” Faith

“Why would God make one of the Ten Commandments about jealousy? Nobody can control jealousy!” asked my 7-year-old. Good question. Once, my first impulse might have been to say, “So we try harder.” Big mistake. When my younger daughter was very small, she would wriggle from the towel, her sturdy, smooth limbs bending and extending,…

Sacred Interruptions

Sacred Interruptions

When I’m trying to write, my young daughter likes to sit on my lap and have what we call “typing time.” Her fingers perched over the keyboard, she practices her motor coordination and spelling skills by typing simple words over and over. Mom. Mom. Mom. Cat. Cat. Cat. I indulge my daughter in practice, but…

Learning to Listen

Learning to Listen

I felt confident walking into the New Jersey post office that afternoon. I had set clear rules beforehand for my children. They knew to avoid the automatic door buttons. As tempting as the buttons were, an open door would land them right on Main Street with oncoming traffic while I was still in line. In…