• Why You’ll Never Be Content Without God

    Over the last 13 years, I’ve walked my son through cancer twice. More than a quarter of his 24 years have been spent on one goal—knocking leukemia on its butt. And that’s not counting the years of cleaning up the fallout of all that chemo and radiation. Kyle’s first treatment plan lasted over three and a half years. After I recovered from the shock, I zipped from anxious, to uncertain, to alarmed, to discouraged about 20 times a day. Watching him struggle brought on a sadness so deep my chest constantly ached. But every time I thought I’d tumble over the edge, a sense of calm caught me and held…

  • When the World Expects More Than You Can Give

    The sun is up. The house is still. The clock ticks off the morning until it’s closer to lunchtime than to breakfast. I’m in bed, covers over my head, curled around my body pillow, my cat asleep against me. Not because I stayed up too late the night before or because it’s my one morning to sleep in or because I haven’t had a do-nothing day in weeks. I had one yesterday, the day before, and the day before that. My month has been packed solid with do-nothing days. I should be doing laundry, cleaning my bathroom, making a much needed grocery run, checking my daughter’s homework, calling about a…

  • Bring on the Blessings

    I’ve been thinking a lot about blessings lately. It’s been a hard few years for our family. My son recently hit the twenty-month mark in his journey with leukemia. We’re shuffling along slower than we were before cancer struck and forced him home from college to battle for his life. The adrenaline that hit at his diagnosis, and pushed us through crisis after crisis, has given way to a crash of exhaustion. We’re ready to ride the downhill relief of getting over the worst of the cancer mountain, yet we’re stuck in the middle of the climb. Every one of us is drained and tired and ready to be done–because…