Every once in a while, a bumper sticker catches me by surprise. About a year ago, the truck you see in the picture was in front of me at the gas station. I don’t know how you feel about these bumper stickers, but they make me sad.
It Sounds Like A Bad Joke
An orthopedic surgeon, a psychologist, a high-end interior designer, and a lawyer walk into a factory. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but actually it was just my Tuesday.
Why Jesus is Powerless
The Nicaraguan countryside was dark all around us, but the lights of the hostel courtyard shone brightly. The world was quiet except for our easy conversation and the occasional thump of a bug bumping into a light. Some of us sat in chairs, others swayed gently in hammocks. One of our youngest team members, an eight-year old girl, read out …
The One Key to Unlocking Happiness in Marriage
I was nineteen years old when he proposed and this week we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. We’ve been married long enough that if you were born around the time of our wedding, you’re now in college. In other words, we’ve been married a lifetime. And yet, it feels like we are still at the beginning.
Find Adventure and Share Joy Wherever You Go
The note taped on the back said, “Can I join your family, please?” It was a cute way of casting approval on our message. The note was from the calligrapher and the message on the front was our family motto in her artistic hand:
Valleys Lead to Mountaintops
Lately I’ve been asking myself, “What is my life communicating?” After all, we are each writing our own life story day by day. Guess what? Storytelling can be hard. When I was in high school, our 10th-grade English teacher, Ms. Albritton, taught us about something called “The Tilley Plot Scheme.” This is the front of Professor Tilley’s book and it …
What is Your Life Communicating?
I love words. I love to read them, write them, hear them, speak them, and even spell them. I’ve focused a lot of effort lately on learning to use my words more effectively. In October I flew to Colorado to attend the SCORRE Conference. It was led by two master communicators — Ken Davis and Michael Hyatt. In November I …
My Decision to Adopt Was Selfish
I love to celebrate adoption. My husband and I have two amazing children, both born in Russia. They came home about 3 years apart and they aren’t biologically related or from the same region. We missed out on the early months of their lives, but we experienced the joy of bringing each of them home around their first birthday. When …
How Infertility Made Me Helpless But Gave Me Freedom
I used to think I had the power to make my life whatever I wanted it to be. I thought careful planning and intentional decision making would get me everything I wanted, everything I deserved. I refused to acknowledge my helplessness. Admitting I could not do it all would surely cause chaos and, possibly, planetary re-alignment. In short, I was …
3 Things This Adoptive Mom Loves to Hear
One night a few years ago my husband and I were at a comedy club with friends. The comedian was going on and on about being in the delivery room when his children were born. He used his comedic intuition to find the ONE person in the audience who absolutely did NOT want to participate—my husband. He asked if we …