Looking Back with Graditude, Looking Forward with Confidence

When Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, our country was in the middle of the Civil War.  Loved ones were being lost daily on the battlefields in America and our country was being torn apart and full of uncertainty. It seemed there was little to be thankful for.  Yet Lincoln saw the need to seek God and be thankful for His mercy and provision during the hard times, and ask for our country’s healing and prosperity in the future.  It was a declaration of hope and trust in God that despite the turmoil in the present, God Continue Reading

Roots and Wings and Parenting Things

“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots.  The other is wings.” Hodding Carter, Jr. Like every parent I know, I’ve made my share of blunders. There are times I wonder if something I said or did in one of my many moments of impatience permanently warped my children, and that’s why I’m so often tempted to throw my hands up and plunge into “passive parenting” mode.    Sometimes it seems they could do a lot better than to have me as a parent, and they could do a better job on their own! But then I realize that Continue Reading

What, Me, Worry?

What does a girl do when she’s anxious?  In my case, she bakes oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, settles down in front of her favorite chick flick and proceeds to eat the whole batch into oblivion. Chewy, sweet, slightly nutritious… escapism. There are so many things that set our nerves on edge these days.  We worry about our children’s safety.  We hear stories about people showing up at schools with shotguns and predators’ trolling the internet. Our schedules seem to be non-stop, finances and relational issues bog us down, and we torment Continue Reading

God’s Lemonade

I’m fresh off a study in my women’s group on the Book of Jonah-- four short chapters long on drama!  It’s a story of God’s interruption in the life of a man who refused His call, rebelled and bolted, got rerouted and released on the shore with no choice but to revisit his mandate to preach repentance. Could our group relate from lessons learned in our own lives!  I appreciated the honest sharing, citing second chances and divine interventions, recycled hardships and God’s unrelenting pursuit ( O Love that Will Not Let Me Go! ).  We Continue Reading

“Looking Good is the Best Revenge” and Other Worldly Myths

Last month the famous editor of Cosmopolitan, Helen Gurley Brown, passed away.  She was a pioneer of sorts in the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s.  During that time, I was an impressionable young preteen with a fascination for fashion magazines, intent on studying my budding womanhood and looking for role models anywhere I could find them. Don’t get me wrong here – my mother was a wonderful role model for me, and the older I get the more I’m grateful for her and appreciate who she was and what she gave me. She not only was a Continue Reading