My Twirly Testimony: A Story of Mothering with Weakness and Awe

My Twirly Testimony: A Story of Mothering with Weakness and Awe

My beautiful daughter Adelaide is my giggly, silly, twirly testimony. We prayed for her for so long. My desperate desire for a baby took me by surprise, and it soon morphed into a deep anger when every month revealed my lack of control. The medicine didn’t work, but one day I discovered I was pregnant anyway. I called the nurse from my driveway, and I stood there in disbelief and cried. What a gift! I was beside myself with gratitude, but pregnancy was hard, and I was afraid. My love for this person I’d never met shocked me and sometimes oppressed me. I wanted to get this right.

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Restaurant Bingo for Parents

Restaurant Bingo for Parents

Going out to eat is one of my favorite things in the world. However, I have two toddlers, and this makes things tricky. Truthfully, I think we’ve trained them pretty well: we repeat our simple “restaurant rule” in the car (“bottom in seat!”), I have a bag of plastic animals in my bag that they’re only allowed to play with at a restaurant, and we keep trying and practicing, which is key. They do about as good of a job as two toddlers can do, but also? They are, undeniably, tiny sinners.

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Free Easter iPhone Wallpaper

Free Easter iPhone Wallpaper

For over a month, my phone has been wearing this Valentine's theme donut wallpaper that I doodled, and frankly, Ida is a little embarrassed about it. Ida, of course, is my iPhone. I've created some new Easter duds for her, and in case your sense of personification is also out of control, Ida and I have decided to share. Enjoy! 

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Mary Cathryn

Mary Cathryn

This week I am reminded once again that the world is overwhelmingly dark. That death hurts in the deepest parts. That the whole earth churns under the weight of It shouldn’t be like this! The sentence we’ve muttered a hundred times when brains and hearts can’t seem to process the loss of MC: “It’s too much.”

I’m told the body is made of 90 percent water, and I think it’s fair to say that Mary Cathryn’s insides were carbonated—fizzy and lively and friendly.

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A Prayer for Those Who Hurt on Sundays

A Prayer for Those Who Hurt on Sundays

“Easy like Sunday morning” are lyrics that can grate. Not because it’s hilariously difficult to get everyone ready and into the car on a Sunday (it is!) but because of something much deeper. Because church, for some, is a place of deep loneliness. Of profound wounds. Of rejection. Of distrust. Of having to stand next to offenders and hear their voices proclaim worship. Of realizing your own role as an offender and having to encounter those you’ve hurt.

Once, in a room full of people, we were asked the question, “Is it easy to love the Church?” Everyone around me nodded quickly and happily, saying, “ Yes! We love our church!” My jaw dropped.

This is not my experience. I am bloody from my attempts to love the Church.

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