Table for One

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book in the girls hands

Photo by Kaboompics .com on Pexels.com

Here’s my typical Friday night experience as a single parent having just dropped off my kids with their dad for the weekend:

“No kids! I can do anything! I should call a friend and go out for drinks!”

“Eh, I can’t really afford it and it’s last minute. No one will be available. I should just go home.”

“I don’t want to go home to my empty house. I’ll go out by myself! I’ll go somewhere fun and new that I get to pick!”

“I’m lonely. I don’t want to go out by myself, I’ll just go home.”

“I’ll take a book with me so going out by myself seems intentional! Maybe a handsome, bookish gentleman will ask what I’m reading!”

“I’m not technically free to date, nor am I secure enough in myself yet to think anyone would be interested in me, I’ll just go home.” Continue reading →

On Flooded Basements and the Garden of Eden

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bricks wall garden door

Photo by Little Visuals on Pexels.com

There’s a podcast I love called Terrible, Thanks for Asking. It’s about being ok with not being ok. It’s about grieving really awful stuff. It’s about, when someone asks you how you’re doing, not just answering, “I’m fine.” It’s about sometimes saying, “I’m not fine. Everything is awful right now.” It’s about vulnerability and honesty and imperfection, tragedy and death and unbearable loss. Continue reading →

Finding Beauty that Heals

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pexels-photo-529865.jpeg

Beauty is the bedrock under all of life. Sometimes, like bedrock, I have to dig deep to uncover it. Other times, it is so present it’s overwhelming. It’s everywhere, easy, free for the taking.

Today was one of those times.

Coming on the heels (or rather, smack in the midst) of a time when beauty has been well hidden in my life, the contrast is so obvious it’s laughable.

I’m basking. Yes, this is a stop-and-smell-the-roses, appreciate-the-moment-while-it’s-here kind of thing. There’s some kind of truth in those tired old phrases.

The electric green grass.

The whispery, shivery breeze.

Watching my littlest boys play in the dirt, loving them so much I can’t stand it.

Playing music I love in the car with the windows open, each note isolated and lovely and somehow still a part of everything else.

No matter how much it seems like it won’t, spring always comes. The harder, excruciating kind of barren winter beauty, the kind that empties and cleanses and shapes us, only lasts for a season.

I say this to remind myself — when beauty is hidden, dig for it. Find it. And when it is all around you, grab it. Drink it. Soak in it. Stop and notice every little blade-of-grass bit of it. And gather it up like a treasure. Pile it in the storehouse of your heart.

Beauty, even remembered beauty, heals.

Blue Christmas

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barnstarThe holiday season this year has not been merry for me. This past week has been particularly trying, exposing for all the world to see my poor parenting under stress. Yesterday I dropped off my two youngest boys with a friend while I rushed to keep an appointment. Both boys were sockless in late December, the baby still in pjs, his face orange and messy because he ate mac and cheese—yes, fake fluorescent-orange powder, boxed mac and cheese—for breakfast. This morning’s breakfast was Christmas cookies . I reason that they can’t be any more sugary than donuts or Pop Tarts or Lucky Charms. Right? Continue reading →

Running toward Joy

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woman-runnerIt’s a late-summer Sunday evening. I’m training for the Baltimore half-marathon, my first-ever running race. Today’s goal is eight miles, the farthest run yet. I’m chugging up a long, gradual hill on the last leg of the run at a pace barely above a walk. I can barely see my two training partners ahead, both veteran runners who, without meaning to, naturally and steadily increased the space between us. Desperately thirsty and hungry, all I can think about is how much I’m craving watermelon. My legs hurt, my back hurts, my right hip hurts. Three of my toes, smashed against the front of my too-small running shoes, throb so agonizingly I almost stop. Almost.  Continue reading →

Lent for Mothers

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Photo by Jennifer Balaska via Wikimedia Commons

Photo by Jennifer Balaska via Wikimedia Commons

My dear friend Kristen, mother of three boys ages four and younger, recently posted the list below on Facebook. I loved it so much, and she graciously gave me permission to reproduce it here. Here’s why I love it. First of all, it made me laugh. I identified with every single one of her penances. I love that there can be as many different parenting philosophies as there are parents in the world, but there are also so many things that all mothers share and understand. I also love this list because it is so encouraging. It’s so easy at the end of a long day at home with kids to look around at your toy-cluttered house, laundry piles, and spaghetti-crusted dishes and wonder what in the world you have to show for your day. This list is a reminder of all we mamas lay down for the sake of our babies and families.  Continue reading →

I’m a Writer

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typewriter

Photo by Chance Agrella via Freerangestock.com

There’s a comedy skit where a would-be writer moves in to an apartment next to noisy neighbors. When they get too loud, he calls the cops, protesting weakly, “I’m trying to write in here! I’m a writer!”

It’s an inside joke between me and my brother – we say it to each other when I’m talking about writing-related business. There’s always been a little part of me, though, that believes I am that stereotype – the whiny dilettante that always tells everyone how I do some writing work, or want to, hope to, would really like to be a writer.  Continue reading →

Early in the morning, my song will rise to thee…

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Photo by runrunrun via stock.xchng

Photo by runrunrun via stock.xchng

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” Mark 1:35

I crave the peace of early mornings. The silence is almost physical – a soft and welcome assault on my ears. I was never a morning person, but with three children, mornings have become my refuge. Sometimes I am productive, busily putting things in order, finishing leftover chores and making breakfast before anyone is awake to distract me. Sometimes I am contemplative, praying and listening for God in the quiet. Sometimes I am blessedly unproductive, resting in the stillness before the day requires anything of me.  Continue reading →

Guest Post: Faith and Motherhood

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I had the privilege to be a guest blogger for a good friend: author, pastor and father, Adam Feldman. You can find my post about how motherhood has impacted my faith here, and while you’re at it, look around and enjoy his writing!

I met Adam and his wife Kim several years ago, when their church was meeting in the living room of someone’s house, none of us had kids yet, and we had a lot more free time to spend at coffee shops, reading and writing and talking. It’s amazing to see where we are now – Metanoia has grown by leaps and bounds, we’ve all had a bunch of kids, jobs and life changes, we see each other much less, but our hearts are still close.

I love when that happens.