When Mother’s Day Hurts (New Post at The Glorious Table)
At the age of twenty-seven, I stood in a church on Mother’s Day and wept. I’d been diagnosed with a condition that made it difficult to bear children, and being a mother had been the dream of my life. Even in elementary school, my career goals always revolved around...
Who Is My Neighbor?
Several years ago, I worked in a hospital emergency room, greeting patients and families as they entered the ER. My responsibility was to see that everyone was as comfortable as possible while waiting for treatment. Just a few months into my employment, I began to...
Exchanging Anxiety for Joy (New Post at The Glorious Table)
Although I’ll always have blurry spots in my memory of it, the trauma that shaped me has remained crystal clear. That’s what our minds do; they jumble information from our past when it becomes too hard to carry it. In processing unfathomable experiences, however, this...
Allowing Ourselves to Feel
New Post: True Bravery Means Facing Ourselves
“You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort. You cannot have both.” ~Brené Brown The morning is when I step into a new day, hopefully bringing with me only what was good about the day before. Stepping into a new year holds even more hope. Words and resolutions...
Where to Find Simple Peace and Joy
I remember crawling under the Christmas tree as a small child, before the packages were in place. Those first few years we didn’t have lights on the tree, we had a spotlight under the plate glass window shining on the carefully placed ornaments. I remember the warmth...
Hope in the Midst of a Grief Season (New Post at The Glorious Table)
I grew up believing November in my home would always be about pumpkin pies, a house full of relatives, and plates of the usual Thanksgiving fare. Instead, we’ve run the gamut from joining friends to quiet days with just the four or five of us. Four years ago November...
Dear World, From Roseburg: Three years later
Author's Note: On October 1, 2015 our town was shattered by the unthinkable. A shooter entered a classroom on our small community college campus and killed nine of our own as well as wounding nine others. My response that next day was a piece that reflected my...
The Heart of Connection (New Post at The Glorious Table)
If there is one word for what I have craved most in my life, I would say it’s connection. Of course, I want to belong, and for years I equated fitting in with belonging. I also believed that my value was only in my beauty or my abilities. I’m glad I was wrong. I’m...
The Act of Forgiveness
We've all been hurt or offended. No one is immune to the pain of another person's actions or hurtful words. Even Jesus tells us in Luke 17 that offenses will come. We will be sinned against, gossiped about and disliked (hated) by others. Sometimes it will be our own...
