Jenni Marie 6 Minute Read In a room of 45 ladies, we counted off 1 through 5 nine times and every fifth person stood up. I stood up. I stood up and looked around the room, marveling at the statistic that 20% of the women in that room have battled mental illness or are battling mental illness. I am that…
Jenni Marie 4 Minute Read My Mom has cancer. My friend lost her full-term baby. My cousin has a terminal illness. How many times have you faced your own similarly jarring realities and been forced to acknowledge the fallenness of this world? Everyone has a story of unfairness, an ache, an injustice; mine is just an example of the pain…
Jenni Marie 2 Minute Read The waitress probably thought we were fighting; based simply on the intensity of our words, her assumption was valid. Our date night date night was evolving into a peel-back-the-layers-and-look-deeper discussion. The topic? Our kitchen renovation. This renovation has been five years in the making. My husband began updating his newly purchased home before we were…
Jenni Marie 3 Minute Read I had the pleasure to be with grandma through five of her last days. My arrival from the opposite side of the country was unplanned, but a welcome season of togetherness. She didn’t really know I was there — most of the time, anyway — and when she did acknowledge my presence, it was only…
Jenni Marie 4 Minute Read We are four ladies, tea cups in hand, walking life and Colossians side-by-side around that cozy dining room table. Three Mennonites and one Baptist. One approaching thirty, one approaching ninety. Three Grandmothers and me. When I moved to Canadaland as the new girl, my first goal of survival was to find a ladies Bible study…
Jenni Marie 5 Minute Read Dear Daughter, If you’re reading this letter, it means that you’ve filled my heart and soul with joy; it means that you exist. If you’re reading this letter, it means that God has blessed me with the privileged responsibility of raising you, cherishing you, training you, preparing you. If you’re reading this letter, it means…
Jenni Marie 3 Minute Read “The more you know about the past, the better you are prepared for the future.” (The Internet says that Theodore Roosevelt said this, but Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon Bonaparte also have been cited with similar sentiments.) The point is simple: if we’re going to learn from the past to prepare for the future, not only…
Jenni Marie 5 Minute Read When all strength drained from my limbs and I crumbled into a heap on my kitchen floor, a puddle of tears cowering against the cabinets and hunkered down on the cool tile faced with the most painful betrayal I could imagine, I wasn’t feeling very victorious. When I pulled out of my parents’ driveway for…
Jenni Marie 6 Minute Read As one of the last to get married among my groups of friends, I had been to my share of weddings. I had been in my share of weddings. I had spent my share of Ben & Jerry’s nights convinced my own wedding would never happen. So when it came time to have a wedding,…
Jenni Marie 3 Minute Read I eat food. I make food. I obsess over food. I workout so I can have more food. I eat food so I can live. I live so I can eat food. Food is divisive (carbs or low-carb? fats or fat-free? organic or not? gluten or none?). Food is unifying (have you ever attended a foodless party?)….
Jenni Marie 3 Minute Read Reading had become a chore. As odd as it sounds, that’s what happened. I had spent the majority of my childhood identifying “reading” as my foremost hobby, I had voraciously devoured multiple books a week, and had routinely won the local library’s summer reading program. Somewhere along the way, my default leisure activity switched to…
Jenni Marie 4 Minute Read Lately, the mean voices are particularly loud. On repeat, the angry mantras march through my thoughts, echoing their erroneous chorus and stifling the realities I know to be true. When I hear it enough, I start to believe it. “You are ugly.” “You are fat.” “You are a failure.” “You’re dumb.” “You’re not [good/smart/fast/strong/beautiful] enough….
The End.
The End.