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So You Think You Married the Wrong Person . . . Now What?
Marriage is supposed to be forever. It’s also supposed to be a highlight in our lives. Just look at the energy, excitement, and angst that goes into planning a wedding. Too bad we don’t put the same effort into planning the actual marriage. Our lives might be different if we really thought about why we were getting married, who we were marrying, and how we could learn to be a good spouse. While that kind of serious reflection might break a few engagements, it might also save a lot of heartache. But most of us, even if we’re questioning our choice of life partner, decide to march through our doubts……
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A Beautiful Prayer for God’s Mercy
Mercy and Grace—huge concepts for Christians and a foundational part of who God is. “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy” (James 5:11). Before we focus on mercy, let’s take a second to talk about the difference between them. It’s important to realize mercy and grace aren’t interchangeable because they’re not the same. Think of mercy as not being punished when we do deserve it—God delivering us from judgment. Think of grace as being rewarded when we don’t deserve it—God blessing the unworthy. I can be the best person, the most devoted Christ follower, and a consistent church attender. But without Jesus I’m always going to be unworthy. We can thank sin for that . . Click Here…
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How to Wait on God Without Losing Faith
Please, God, open up a decent spot. Tapping the steering wheel, I circled the local Walmart for the twelfth time, the need to hurry cramping my stomach. Couldn’t leave Kyle alone too long. What if something happened to him while I was gone? I muttered the prayer a few more times, took a few more laps, but the only spot God opened in the rain-drenched, puddled parking lot was so far past left field that if the asphalt had been built for baseball the remote corner would never see a player. Wishing I’d made a better choice in footwear, I glanced at my sandaled feet and parked. The wind blew…
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7 Ways to Survive Sending Your Child Off to College
If you hang around church long enough, you’ll hear people say children are a blessing from the Lord. The Lord agrees. “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth” (Psalm 127:3-4 NIV). While I don’t disagree, the term blessing doesn’t quite cover the emotional wreckage that comes with being a parent. Raising children might be the most difficult, heart-wrenching, joyful, and rewarding journey I’ll ever take. When my kids were small and needy, I fantasized about sleeping past sunrise and taking long showers. As they got a little older, I wished for…
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Strong Enough
A year into my son’s aggressive chemo regimen, he started to look less like a college boy and more like a nursing home candidate. His hips didn’t work right. His knees didn’t work right. His feet didn’t work right. He was falling apart faster than a hundred-year-old man. After he fell three times in a week, his physical therapist suggested better shoes. Really good shoes. The kind that require an actual fitting and a store that doesn’t start with “Wal” and end with “Mart.” We drove to the closest specialty shoe store, hoping new shoes would be an easy fix for yet another debilitating side-effect of constant chemo…READ THE REST…
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The Sound of Silence
Recently, I shared a picture on FB with these words: When someone you love is going through a storm, your silent presence is more powerful than a million empty words. And surprisingly, the message caused a little controversy. When I first read the words, all I thought about was how perfectly they captured my heart and touched me where I was—barely standing in the middle of a turbulent tornado. The year before, my son had relapsed with leukemia, moved home from college, and begun a frightening and aggressive twenty-four month treatment plan. His return changed our family dynamics, our priorities, our focus. We were not the same family. We were…
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When You Just Can’t Rally
Sometimes life feels like a Transformers movie—nonstop, heart-straining action that lasts an hour too long. No matter how busy we feel or how many obstacles dash into our path, we don’t stop moving. There’s always that next thing to do, accomplish, acquire, take care of. Navigating life can be an exhausting cycle of pull it together and get it done. Whatever it is. Wouldn’t it be great if life came with a TV remote? We could power down our day the same way we power down Transformers on Blu-ray. We could get a snack, take a bathroom break, let our hearts hit a normal beat before we dive back into…
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The Trouble with Honesty
One Sunday while I waited for my husband to park the car, I sat on the bench next to the coffee bar in the church lobby. For fifteen minutes, I watched people coming in and out of the sanctuary. Most of them were smiling and hugging. Almost all of them asked each other the same question—“How are you?” Here’s a breakdown of the answers: “Awesome.” <given with an over-exuberant grin> “Great.” <given with a regular grin> “Fine.” <given with a barely there grin> Most of the answers and grins seemed genuine. But sometimes when the hug ended and the person who asked the question disappeared down the hall, the…
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Surviving the Storm: Everything You Didn’t Want to Know About Chemo
I forgot how ugly chemo can get. Over the last six years, while my son stayed cancer-free, I pushed to the side the ugliness of our first battle with leukemia. Kind of like I shoved away the pain of childbirth after he was born. If I’d remembered my first experience with labor, Kyle would’ve been an only child. If I’d remembered our first ride with cancer, I’d have locked him up in a magic bubble where cancer could never find him. The further Kyle gets into his current treatment, the faster the horrors of chemo come back and suddenly I’m reliving every moment of those rough years in very gritty…
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Surviving the Storm: Running Cancer’s Maze
When the movie, The Maze Runner, hit Redbox, I rented the Blu-ray. Watching movies on our big screen is one of the few things we can still enjoy as a family since my oldest son, Kyle, relapsed with leukemia. His aggressive chemo schedule ensures we don’t take vacations or plan parties or participate in activities that don’t involve spending major chunks of time sitting on cushy chairs. Living in a state of crisis has become our new norm. We’re sadly ecstatic when we learn more about new medications. And planning any outings feels pointless when Cancer hijacks our schedule ninety-nine percent of the time. Trying to survive cancer feels a…
