Dear Daughter of Mine, In a couple of days, I will be thirty-six. This means that you have been with me, a part of me, for a third of my life. I was not much more than a girl-child myself on that day almost exactly twelve years ago when your daddy held my hand in […]
She stood in the parking lot between me and the JAARS library door. I had come to our mission center to run some errands, but I could see by her expression that she wanted to talk. A small, quiet hello. A smile that didn’t touch the liquid pain in her eyes. Her kids are
The Second Law of Thermodynamics lives at my house. You know the physics principle that states that all things tend toward chaos? In our case, chaos has brown ringlets and a dimple in her adorable little chin. We just arrived home from our second out-of-state trip in less than a month, a saga that
We are a nation breathless, lungs squeezed tight by images that come unbidden. Single-file children, crying in terror. Faces of parents, twisted in grief, in disbelief. Tiny ones, smiling from the screen, who knew fear in their last moments here. Fear. When I heard the news about the tragedy in Newtown, CT, my
Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie them in a knot? Can you tie them in a bow?” When I was young, I thought this silly children’s song was about the Venables, my mom’s side of our family tree. You see, the Venables have a peculiar, if endearing,
My dream is to be a wide receiver. Now, before you start trying to picture giant men in shoulder pads and helmets tackling my five-foot tall frame, let me explain. This is the season of turkey and trimmings, loosened belts and football games. It’s also a time to slow down and do some thinking, so
We’re really very normal people. There’s nothing too extraordinary about us. (Well, Mike can play the recorder with his nose, which I guess is a useful talent since we do work with middle school students.) We argue. I get frustrated with my kids. And one look at my house tells me just how disorganized
What in the word are we thinking?!!! As I watch my highly energetic 23 month-old scramble around the living room at a mile a minute, I can’t help but ask myself this question. After all, we are planning to take this child and her equally energetic pre-teen sister on a 30+ hour trans-continental trip next