Doing Something Wright

Things that didn’t make it on the last post’s Christmas Eve list: Grown child suddenly overwhelmed by anxiety-ridden coughing attack ✔️ Heavy doses of prayer ✔️ Not everything is always perfect. Tonight as we wrapped up our festivities, one my my precious children suddenly began coughing uncontrollably. The coughing led to anxiety at not knowing what was wrong, which led to more coughing...you get the idea. This is not how we planned to end our night. As I calmed her, brought her anything I could think of to ease her pain and discomfort and prayed fervently over her, I was struck by a feeling of helplessness. Her coughs subsided. Then I sat down and wrote a beautiful blog post about Christmas Eve and what a wonderful night we had had. In all honesty, I meant every word of my previous post. Tonight was special for our family, and I needed to write about that. But I could not leave it at that. I needed to write this part too. I need to remember that life is full of joys and God i

Christmas Eve this year: Grown, globe-trotting college girl home ✔️ Grown, living on her own, slaying the workforce girl home ✔️ Munchies (aka Party Food) for dinner ✔️ Muppets Christmas Carol ✔️ Reading the story of Jesus’ birth from the gospel of Luke ✔️ Nostalgic gifts from youngest child ✔️ Heart full ✔️ This year looked different for our family. Three of our four children are grown and out of the house. We are finding a new normal. Grown children also means our Christmas traditions are growing up too. For the past 15 years we have done nightly devotions from the Advent Jesse Tree, each with a special ornament to represent the part of the Jesus story we were reading. This year, with only one kiddo at home the whole time and most of the devotions memorized by now, we put that tradition on pause. Instead we went with the flow of the season, and then intentionally paused tonight to read from Luke chapters 1 and 2 and John 1:1-4. We reflected on the first Christmas and the

Note: I wrote this post last year, and was waiting for just the right time to post it...fast-forward a year and it is now or never. Enjoy! Every once in a while something completely random becomes a beloved tradition. What I've noticed over the years is that if something happens more than one year in a row, my children automatically deem it tradition. "But we do it every year, Mom!" Our family Thanksgiving 2017 We have several traditions in our family. Some have happened accidentally; some have happened on purpose. We have a Thanksgiving tradition that happened completely by accident! My kids call this tradition "The One Batch of Fudge." The Backstory "The One Batch of Fudge" comes from my family's fondness for fudge at Christmas time. (I know, you thought I was going to tell about a Thanksgiving tradition. Bear with me, I'm getting there.) My mom made fudge every year at Christmas when I was growing up. When I was about

Wouldn’t it be great if God would just create a big, flashy neon sign that said “Do this thing!”? I could sure use one of those signs now! Decisions are hard. Adulting is hard. (Also, where was the word “adulting” when I was younger...it amazes me that one word can sum up life, but I digress.) Life here on earth is hard. My life over the last month has felt like it has been imploding, one loss or major change at a time. I know life isn’t truly imploding, more like rearranging, but it feels hard. I know there is no big neon sign telling me what to do next, but I do think perhaps there are lots of little signs. We just have to look for them. They’re not one big neon sign...They are words of wisdom from a friend who has an outside view of our situation. They are scripture that comes to mind. They are closed doors and open windows. They are the still, quiet voice that comes when you just stop and breath. They are lots of little signs that together make up the bigger picture. I’m lo

I recently celebrated my birthday! I’m 42! (As a fantasy/sci-fi geek, this is a big deal!) I set a big health goal for myself on my 41st birthday...42 pounds by 42! My lack of a plan to make '42 by 42' happen resulted in me gaining 8 pounds in 3 months! I was so unhealthy when I started this journey. Embarrassingly unhealthy! Like, couldn't reach down to put on my socks or tie my shoes, ankles that looked like tree trunks anytime I traveled, panting my way up one flight of stairs, and looking like a drunken elephant when I tried to get up off the floor. (Yes, you can laugh at that! God loves it when we laugh, even at bad jokes!) Going into 2019 I decided to focus on one of our church's core convictions, Pursue Health. Our statement for this core conviction is as follows: Because healthy things grow, we want to strive for health in all parts of our lives and relationships in order to complete the journey God has given us. So I set out to Pursue Health and by my

I’m sitting in my car outside Winco at 9:30 Wednesday night. I have already been to this store once today, but here I am again. I need to go inside to buy some Gatorade.  Don’t get me wrong, I like shopping at Winco, so my problem isn’t the store or the fact that I need to go inside. My problem is this: It’s been a long day. I left the house at 7:15 this morning and haven’t been home yet. I had an appointment before work, meetings, a physical therapy appointment that literally brought me to tears, a shopping trip, set up for clubs, more errands, a night of clubs where many of the kids decided that what they had to say to their friend was just as important as what I was trying to communicate and at the same time I was trying to communicate, clean up from clubs and then rides home.  And now here I am...sitting in the Winco parking lot, writing this post instead of getting out of my car.  Stalling epically because I am simply done! I know everything I did today had a

Let me tell you a story about my tiara...when my three girls were little I referred to them as my princesses. One day my sweet Noah looked at me and informed me - in a very royal way, as I had trained her well - that if she was a princess then I, her mommy, must be the Queen!  She started calling me Queen Mommy.    This was especially endearing since she couldn’t pronounce the “Qu” sound quite right. It kinda caught on, and one of my sweet friends bought me a tiara for my birthday. (I think it may have been the year I threw a royal hissy-fit about my birthday, so I’m not sure I deserved it, which makes it even more special.)  My daughters and my beautiful girlfriends helped me to see value in myself at a time when I was all about everyone else (except, of course, for during the aforementioned hissy fit - thanks ladies for not disowning me that year!)  A couple years later, I came to a late night realization that I needed to make as big a deal about myself as I did about ot