It sounded like so much fun, that I tucked the idea away in the back of my head. While raising kids, I’d read a magazine article about grandparents who held a Cousins Camp for their grandkids, while their kids skedaddled off to parts unknown. I've lived through twenty years and two knee replacements since my…
When he wasn't griping about how late we were, he was griping about my driving. Stone wrecked the truck his senior year of high school and was dependent on me for rides to school in the mornings. We were often late leaving, and I drove fast to make up for it. Stone got better about…
I was swamped and decided to take the month off. While writing for my blogs and an online women's magazine are normal monthly activities, October was just too darn busy. At first, it felt like a relief to take a break, but after a while, it felt like I don't want to write anymore. In…
This is a story about me and my baby, who’s now 22, and the misery we walked through together to find a love connection. It’s a story of our mutual failure, but it’s a story with a happy ending. I lived the miracle. I watched it change me. And then I watched it change my…
We had a threat of frost predicted for 2 a.m. Unsure of whether or not the pots I'd planted at church would make it--with Easter coming up, it seemed a shame to risk it--I grabbed garbage bags and shish kabob skewers and headed out. I hadn't bothered to unload the yard tools that were in…
Dug up. Tilled. Hard words are augers Where they’re spilled. Does your hand hold the plow? Sow bitter seeds that fall? Planted with tears, will you bring a harvest after all? You see the harrowing. You hear when I call. No need to explain. You understand it all. Sprout me green From this soil of…
My phone dinged, “How about a hike?" came from daughter in law, Lollie. They picked me up a few minutes later, and we were off for The Pocket Trail in Chickamauga, GA. The boys were strapped in back when they arrived, listening to Harry Potter. Lollie seemed different--serious and quiet. Once we were on our…
I read, “Surely God is my help;the Lord is the one who sustains me.Let evil recoil on those who slander me;in your faithfulness destroy them,” Psalm 54:4-5. Wait.Not that last part, God. Not destroy.Redeem my enemy and me. Swallow our strife. Open blind eyes.Like the centurion, who saw Jesus and believed,while at his post,doing business.…
Listen to today’s post, read aloud by Eve Our “baby” of five kids is just two short weeks away from being 21. It occurs to me that even though he’s living with us temporarily and working, he’s for all intents and purposes grown, though maybe not entirely gone. It also occurs to me that it’s…
My phone dinged, “How about a hike?" came from daughter in law, Lollie. They picked me up a few minutes later, and we were off for The Pocket Trail in Chickamauga, GA. The boys were strapped in back when they arrived, listening to Harry Potter. Lollie seemed different--serious and quiet. Once we were on our…
C. S. Lewis’s words from 1948 ring with relevance. Just replace “atomic bomb” with “coronavirus.” — Read on http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/cs-lewis-coronavirus/
Ransom Bruce Harris was born to doula-daughter, Sadie, and her hubby, Bryan on February 7. Sadie made sure to do all the training she’d been coaching her mamas to do over the years and was in wonderful shape for an easy delivery. Only there were other plans in place. After a nearly 30-hour labor and…
Cries from my children used to wake me in the middle of the night, and after that, my teenagers’ calls saying they’d be late. Now, it’s a call from the bathroom. There are also the unexplained wake-up calls, the ones that tug me out of sound sleep for no reason I know of except to…
The ache in my chest was a tight knot, a familiar feeling. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care, to push it down as I always had. I went for a bike ride on our trails, straining hard against the pedals to climb pasture hills as I pushed hard on the knot to force…
