Mothering on Mother's Day

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Mothering on Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is a day shaped for sweet celebration—but it also exposes: who we’ve lost, who we long for, who we have never known. If you've ever spent a Mother’s Day service weeping or avoided it altogether, you know what I mean. (Precious brother or sister, if that's you, I hope this and this can serve you. May God bless you and keep you.)

And yet, even for the woman who is not currently experiencing any acute loss or longing, it can be an unexpectedly difficult day. This article is for that woman—the one whose circumstances seem ideal on paper. The one whose house and hands are full, who is hungry to be acknowledged and appreciated.

To this woman, I want to offer two pieces of counsel:

  1. Look out.

  2. Get dressed.

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Social Media and the Path to Life

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Social Media and the Path to Life

Today we went to a pumpkin patch, and it made me think about how social media has weaponized things like pumpkin patches. Those last eight words sound like the punchline to a joke, but everyone with an @ before their name knows social media can put sharp edges on even the most innocuous fun.

Nothing is safe from the incessant nudging to curate our lives and present them for others, right? Not the pumpkins, not the cup of coffee and open Bible, not the cute outfit. The nudges make it harder to enjoy the coffee, the Bible, the date night, the playground.

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Discipleship and Direct Objects

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Discipleship and Direct Objects

Confession: Indirect and direct objects never made sense to me. This is not spicy information except that I’m writer, a former writing teacher, and a former writing curriculum writer. (Whew.) The point of all those inbred terms is this: based on my skill set, indirect and direct options should have made sense, but they didn’t.

(Don’t worry—this is not a post about grammar. I wouldn’t do that to you. I also wouldn’t do that to me.)

I suppose I could have asked for extra help from one of the many teachers who taught indirect/direct objects to me, but I didn’t care that much, and it didn’t seem to matter much. I also have this problem in which I don’t pay attention to things that aren’t interesting to me (I’m working on it), and it’s hard to ask for help when the truth is that you just couldn’t bring yourself to pay attention, and worse, you suspect you’ll zone out again the second the teacher starts answering your question. Man, I’m a gem.

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As You Go to Kindergarten

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As You Go to Kindergarten

To my brand new kindergartener:

Look at you, my girl! You are so big, so funny, so smart. I’ve been crazy about your from the first moment. You’ve always made me awe. When you were born, I spent hours investigating your little features, considering your tiny frame, wondering about your budding personality. I was so curious about who you were, so curious about who I was, so excited for us to be together.

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Healing for your Sunday Story

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Healing for your Sunday Story

Today is Friday. We all like Friday—Friday has tons of friends. Friday sits at the popular table in the lunchroom. Friday throws great parties.

Sunday is a different story. Some of us enjoy having her around, others of us get prickly when we think of her. Maybe you’re part of the prickly crowd. Maybe to you, Sunday represents obligation and expectation, maybe it reminds you of betrayal from people who should have never betrayed you, maybe it exposes your loneliness, maybe it highlights your failures.

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