My parents did not love me well. I thought maybe they didn’t know how for most of my life. I told people, when they asked about them, that they just didn’t have the right tools in their toolbox to be generous loving parents. So, I forgave them before they ever asked to be forgiven because…
Today I saw a sticker of two female figures, each donning the iconic triangle, but one in color, clearly a superhero’s cape. The quote read, “It was never a dress.” I laughed and immediately bought some. We are in the era of “girl power.” Companies such as Dove and Always are seeking to change the…
Sugary calorie rich junk food covers my kitchen counter this morning and pop-its litter the garage. Somewhere in the neighborhood 3, maybe 5 or 7 teenage boys are loose, celebrating the end of middle school while every other grade remains in class for two more days. That makes the freedom all the more vast: they…
I was single for most of my twenties. I was hopeful about finding Mr. Right but it seemed like a long shot because I was a campus pastor. Most of the men in my life were college undergraduates or married colleagues in ministry, neither of which were appropriate pools for mate selection. After reading a…
My hair fell out on a Friday; I was enduring breast cancer treatments. To prove his solidarity, my husband attacked his thick, silver hair with an electric razor that was as out of control as our lives appeared to be. Friends and family members of cancer patients suffer, also. They often struggle with fear and…
My mediation partner Sig Cohen and I are in the final stretch of a book tentatively called How Do You Want to be Remembered? In some respects this is a “how-to” book complete with its share of lists like, “Ten rules for …“ But I wanted it to be more than practical advice; I wanted…
“Thank you, Mother, for raising a worthless daughter.” These words, part of a lament of a bride going to meet her husband for the first time, summed up the experience of women in China in the 1800’s, according to Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. In this book Lisa See brings to light the reality of…