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Encouragement for every season of lifeTeenager’s Double Duty Desk
She’d wanted a desk for her room for some time - my younger daughter, Julia, that is. We didn’t have a big budget, but every once in a while we’d look. We just hadn’t found the right thing at the right price. Then one day as we browsed together in a local resale shop,...
The Fear of Failure
While playing hide and seek as a kid, I discovered a bomb in our closet. Well…kind of. I was seven years old. My younger brother, who was six at the time, and I decided to hide from our mom while she was on the phone so she would have to find us when she hung up. We...
Mismatched Silverware
At Christmas time I love to decorate, and cook, and be creative! I’m really not into it at any other time of the year but at Christmas, it’s the season when all the details make a difference -- or so I thought. It’s been my goal that my house and home would look and...
When You Are Quietly Drowning
Drowning. It isn't like the movies - no flailing arms, no loud screaming, no thrashing about. Instead, it is insidiously quiet. Drowning is a silent struggle, without wild movements to draw attention, and ends with the victim simply, finally slipping under the water....
Let Your Yes Be Yes
It’s almost Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year! So how is it that on one Christmas Day I ended up crying on the floor of an I-94 rest stop bathroom? I was the Goldilocks of Christmas until I learned to say “no.” This Christmas is Much Too Hard It seems...
Leading Your Family into 2015
There’s something about this time of year! As this year begins to come to a close, we reflect on the past year to remember all we are thankful for and look to the next for all that it will hold. Every year at about this time, I feel a tugging in my heart to seek God...
A Christmas Memory
She was such a tiny woman, even from my child-sized estimation. Josie had beautiful, ancient Native American skin that was more wrinkled than any other skin I had ever seen. She wore her long brown hair (sprinkled with gray) in braids, and wore glasses that were...
Five Money Saving Tips (from a former financial disaster)
I am a recovering financial disaster. I would like to say I’m fully recovered, but I know how easy it is to slip into past bad habits. I’m writing this article as much as a reminder to myself as to be insight for others. I was a single mom for 18 years (until getting...
5 Ways to Balance Giving and Getting in Kids’ Christmas Traditions
My five and three-year-old daughters love to get “stuff.” It doesn’t matter what that “stuff” is. My daughter ran out of her room this morning, thrilled because she found a blue “fuzzy” (aka lint) in her room, and wasn’t it so soft? But regardless, their penchant for...
Evening Stretching Devotional
The snow is falling. The sparkles are beautiful. Everything is covered in white. CRASH! SLIDE! SQUEAL! Tires spin, snow blowers cough, and children whine, “It’s cooooold outside!” As winter falls upon us and one season says goodnight, make time to decompress, calm...