places | seasons | mental & spiritual health
When my firstborn daughter was one, we moved approximately 8,000 lonely miles from all our friends and family. After 32 hours of travel, we arrived to our new country, on her first birthday (we did celebrate that occasion with loved ones before we left). Her birthday falls on Halloween, so we left our home country …
Continue reading "Stranger Things Holidays: Like Home Alone, But Without the Feel-Good Ending"
If grief is a mighty river, most of us live the majority of our days from the safety of the shore, where the occasional strong wave laps at our toes. But inevitably, at some point in our lives, we’ll find ourselves in over our heads, choking on grief’s bitter water and grasping for air. Our …
Continue reading "Grief at Christmas: Where God Meets Us (for FamilyLife.com)"
I don't know about you, but I've been feeling pretty worn down recently. Pandemic, politics and parenting have my baseline anxiety a bit higher than normal -- I've been catching my jaw clenched, my breath shallow, my back sore with tension. When anxiety is high, my threshold for other stimuli becomes lower. So when my …
There have been a few seasons of my life where it became clear: if Jesus isn't who He says he is, then I am to be pitied among all the world, as Paul said to the Corinthians. In other words, I'm wasting my life, wasting this pain, hardship, struggle, loss. The kind of moment where …
The holidays are stressful. Schedules and to-do lists are packed, we see people we don’t often see (like your cousin’s father-in-law’s nephew), and there’s pressure to make everything magical for everyone. And while there are plenty of things vying for our mental and emotional attention, toxic thoughts don’t need to be one of them. What …
Continue reading "4 Ways to Stop Toxic Thoughts During the Holidays (for FamilyLife.com)"
I was walking through a friend’s house when immediately, a frog leapt to my throat. A painting hung there in her hall—and somehow, I felt more understood. I comprehended a nugget of that transcendent truth art can mine in the soul. The title? Jesus and the Angry Babies. Anger issues—angry babies (and angry children and angry mom)—is …
Continue reading "Anger Issues: How I’m Helping My Kids … and Myself (for FamilyLife)"
Here in the U.S., folks are gearing up for a presidential election. Neither side is underplaying what they think is at stake in this one: the soul of our Nation. It’s all too easy to get swept up in it all, especially since both sides are using fear to pull you toward them. Especially with …
But what does waiting well really mean? When I stop to think about it, it can’t mean stuffing your desires and needs so that they don’t ‘bother’ you much. Waiting, surely, is meant to be disruptive.
The family happened to be all occupied. With what, I’m not sure, but it was calm and I decided to try slipping onto the porch without being missed. I grabbed a few quick supplies: drink, phone (always), book, and pencil and headed out to the swing camp chair. The pencil -- I’m pretty sure my …
It’s as if we were living in a house and it burned to the ground. I’m not sure I ever stopped to make a list of what was left in the house, of what we lost. We moved into a new house, fully furnished -- it was easier just to pretend everything was normal,” I …
