I have to admit, I have a love-hate relationship with mornings. On one hand, I love the freshness of beginning a day anew. There's a sense of hope and redemption I smell along with my morning coffee that wipes away the disappointments of yesterday. On the other, I struggle with insomnia and rarely ...
The Subtle Shift From Boy to Man
I had been counting my days, prepared for things to change as other moms had cautioned me. I loaded my four kids in the car, the school day before us. It was the last year they would all be at the same educational institution--elementary bliss from fifth, to third, and down to kindergarten and ...
Zondervan Verse Mapping Bible [Review]
Studying the Bible is a wonderful practice to add to your life whether you focus on what could be the best 20 minutes of your day or a much longer in-depth study session. ...
CoSchedule Marketing Calendar [Review]
I've been self-employed for the last few decades and continually look for ways to increase my efficiency at handling client work, writing projects, blogging, and running my content websites. I've used a lot of different software solutions over the years and one of my very favorite pieces of software ...
How to Study the Bible
When I left Christian Science in my twenties, I didn’t know much about how to study the Bible. Growing up, we relied on the lesson sermon (distributed by the Christian Science Publishing Society) to tell us which Bible verses to read in correlation with passages from Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science ...
Broken by Trauma, Healed by Hope
What is it like to be broken by trauma and yet healed by hope? It might seem implausible to consider recovering from past traumas, but it is possible with time and work. Everyday occurrences can trigger past hurts in ways that are difficult to understand. Trauma isn't easy to wrap your mind ...
5 More Things Covid-19 Has Taught Me
Last week, I shared five things I've learned during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. As we roll into the New Year, most people feel ready to kick 2020 to the curb. I'm not so quick to say that 2020 was a complete loss. ...
5 Things Covid-19 Has Taught Me
It's difficult to gain perspective when we are in the middle of the biggest upset to daily life any of us can remember. If it had only lasted a few weeks, we'd be back to normal. But we're not. We are nearly a year into this thing called a pandemic, and my flexibility (word of the year) and patience ...
How to Be Grateful When You Don’t Feel Like It
I have to admit, I have a love-hate relationship with gratitude. Partly because of my religious upbringing, and partly because I struggle with taking on too much. When I hear the command, "Be grateful," I sometimes feel resentment or even anger creeping up in me. The question is, "how to do be ...
Staying Focused on What Matters Most
Throughout most of my adult life, I’ve struggled to set good boundaries. Raised in a religious group that subjugated my own sense of self, I failed to learn normal boundaries as many other well-adjusted adults seem to have learned naturally. ...
3 Steps to Honor God’s Vision in Our Lives
Often in our Christian walk, we catch a glimpse of a vision that gives us hope that we can impact others in some meaningful way. In the moment, we rarely have a clue how our vision will ever come to be. This vision eventually becomes our reality as we aim to accomplish it; it becomes a piece of our ...
The End of Elementary School
It's often said that parents try to live vicariously through their children. Our own dashed hopes and dreams can be relived and recreated anew through our offspring. This, as we know, often backfires. In my case, I hadn't given much thought to my personal negative experiences with elementary school ...
