It was somewhere around my third anniversary that reality hit hard enough to make me gasp for breath. I really couldn’t have babies. Not without a miracle.I had so many dreams that involved motherhood and they all crumbled around me. I found myself standing there with dying dreams and agony ... read more
Heaven is my home, earth is my business address.
“Tell me, do you like stories about things that really happened? Wonderful things that the Lord did?” I grew up listening to Allegra McBirney’s stories. Not fairy tales or even parables, but true stories about real little girls and boys all around the world.Our radio didn’t carry her program, ... read more
Found Treasure: A Love Story in Books and Memories
The year I turned twelve years old we moved into the upstairs of my grandparent's house in Northern New York.Until this point my family had been living in far off Homer, Alaska where my father taught at a Bible School. Our interactions with my mom's parents included a handful of visits, many ... read more
She Laughed at the Days to Come
One of my earliest memories of my mother is an image of her doing many things at once. She would rock my baby sister to sleep while giving me instructions (in song) on folding socks. I realize now that she was soothing, singing, rocking, supervising, entertaining and teaching all in that one moment, ... read more
for the one who feels empty and weak
Our son came home on a rainy November day. Instead of a hospital room, we gathered him to us from an airport waiting area. We knelt and talked to him by the luggage carousel and bonded over dinner at Cracker Barrel. My heart cracked with the glory of the Lord’s redemption in my life. While my body ... read more
6 Books to Grow Your Faith
“That is a good book it seems to me, which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.” (Louisa May Alcott) Did you ever sit on a phone book as a kid? Maybe you were too short to reach the table at grandma's house and the latest, hefty edition of The Yellow Pages was commissioned as a sort ... read more
When Life Goes Sour
Despite doing everything right and following best practice, even thrown in some extra precautions for good measure, our day turned sour. Fast.In a foreign country, halfway through our long anticipated vacation-for-the-memory-books, the bliss turned bad. Our practically perfect day of ... read more
how to catch your breath when you can’t stop running
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” (1 Corinthians 9:24) I’m no stranger to hard work. As the oldest, Type-A child growing up on a farm with seven siblings, I learned early that self-discipline and diligence are ... read more
Silver Spoons and Grains of Sand
A friend and mentor once told me that when you're trying to get going again with Bible reading, you can always start by just reading the Proverb that coincides with the day of the month. That is precisely how I wound up reading Proverbs 30 one dreary morning before work. My breath caught in my ... read more
How to Persevere When Things Get Hard
Right before Christmas my husband was injured.We were just upstairs in the barn, cleaning up a few building scraps from when we built the house last year. It wasn’t hard work, nor was it particularly dangerous work.When my husband took a deep breath and told me his finger had just been cut ... read more
