I Wish I had Better News
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...
Dear World, From Roseburg – Part 2
Note: The day after the shooting at UCC on Oct. 1, 2015, I wrote a letter to the world that quickly went viral across the globe. Two years later, this is my sequel to the original commentary. This post was featured in the New Review and at nrtoday.com. ...
Dear World, From Roseburg
Dear World, Before yesterday most of you had never heard of the City of Roseburg. Now when you hear that name you will link us to the tragedy that happened on our small community college campus yesterday. That is not who we are. We are a logging community tucked into...
The Wildfire of Gossip (New Post at The Glorious Table)
At a prayer chapel on top of a hillside in Redding, California, I sat on the grass overlooking the city just one year after a raging fire swept through, destroying everything in its path. The Carr Fire jumped the Sacramento River, blew through three counties, and took...
The Example of Joseph (New Post: The Glorious Table)
I’m the youngest of five children, as well as the only girl. It’s often assumed that I must have been the favorite in my family, but life was more complicated than that, and it would take volumes to explain how emotional issues arose in a family with two loving,...
Your Feelings are Valid
I've picked up more of the cooking in our home lately and with that, I can tell you with all confidence that the smoke alarms throughout the house are working just fine (Ahem). Just like our feelings, they sense something but when they go off they cannot tell the...
How Well Do You See Your Life? (New Post at The Glorious Table)
A few months ago, I had cataract surgery on my left eye. As soon as the anesthesia wore off, the vision in that eye began to clear. For several days afterward, I found myself alternating closing my eyes, right eye then left, amazed at the comparison. I was genuinely...
Are You Chasing Love? (New Post at The Glorious Table)
Have you ever chased love? Like many women of my generation, I found love to be elusive, especially in my formative years. With the way society’s emphasis on finding love diverges from the church’s view, the waters were already muddy when I first dipped my toe in. The...
Are You Well Rooted? (New Post at The Glorious Table)
Sitting on the deck of our home, taking in the sight of our curly willow trees, you would never know they were devastated by a freak winter storm just a few months ago. New leaves and branches are bursting out all over. In February no one would have predicted they...
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...
