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 …
What If The Grass Is Greener Over There?
Apparently my children have the hardest life of any children in the state of Florida. If my children are to be believed, everyone else has fewer chores with far more privileges. My poor children, having been denied televisions in their rooms and access to rated R movies, really have it bad. They have to deal with limited screen time and …
5 Truths I Know About You
5 Truths I Know About You (But You May Not Know About Yourself There are (at least) five truths I want my children, nieces, and nephews to know about themselves. As I pondered this list, I realized you might need to hear them, too. So I invite you to read this list and insert yourself as the recipient. To those …
Finding Love to Spare in the Selfishness of Grief
Have you noticed that grief makes even the happiest memories hard? This is a picture of my Dad, Tim. He passed away on February 28, 2014. I have a million, billion happy memories of my father, maybe more. Before I say more, let me acknowledge that while my dad was one of the good ones, yours maybe wasn’t. Surely that …
Why Being Unique is Overrated
I’m not a neat freak. Truly, I’m not. I’m perfectly comfortable with a level of disorganization and clutter that would make some of you insane. Even though I’m not over the top about it, I do love the way our living room looks when everything is in its place. The room is quite pretty when there are no dirty socks, …
I Hope You Never Find Contentment
For a long time, I believed I was supposed to be content. I thought contentment meant maturing beyond my consumerism, greed, gluttony, and selfishness. I thought contentment was the natural outpouring of gratitude and the embodiment of joy. Contentment was so important to me, I tried to talk myself into it. I would mentally list all the amazingly wonderful parts …
Why I Stopped Asking If I Measure Up
Do you ever find it hard to look in the mirror and really look at yourself? It makes sense to me that it’s hard to face our mistakes and confront the worst parts of ourselves. Acknowledging those aspects of our lives can be painful. But, why is it hard to believe the good stuff about ourselves?
What I Learned in a Jungle in Nicaragua
Have you ever done a mission trip? It’s a fairly new experience for me, but as this post goes up on the site, I’m in Nicaragua on my third trip. (And I already have an idea of when my fourth trip will be — email me for information on how to join the team for July 2015.) There are a …
The Biggest Obstacle to Living Loved and How to Overcome It
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what keeps me (and you) from living loved. It can be summed up as simply as “life.” But, like most superficial and overly-simplified answers, this isn’t very helpful. For me, the biggest obstacle to living loved is this—I know myself.