The Mommy Minute

Normal

There’s a place I’ve always wanted to live but have only seen from afar. Other people live there. I think. At least it looks like they do. A few times I visited this place in a dream, but then I woke. I’m not allowed to go there, you see, because of this thing I live […]

Pass the Baton

“God gave you your kids for a reason.” My friend emphasized the word your. She was giving me a pep talk in my parenting, the kind of pep talk you never forget. She went on to tell me that my kids weren’t mine by chance. God chose me to mother and my husband to father […]

Speak Life!

There is a point I can come to in the course of a crazy day where my tongue barrels down like runaway freight train hell-bent on destruction. Without even realizing it, I unleash a torrent of flaming frustration about every imperfection I see. And my home becomes a dark place where the crack of eggshells […]

My Other Husband

About twenty years ago, I began a relationship with another man. And I must confess, it has become rather intimate. Now that I have your full attention… let me say that there’s nothing sordid about it. My first husband, Bryan, knows all about him. He tried to get rid of this other guy about a […]

Controlling Me

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Sincerely. He is usually the first to apologize. And this time, I was more to blame. I blew up over the most trivial thing. I’m mortified to put it in writing… I couldn’t find my small container of coconut oil that I use to remove eye makeup. I know, it was […]

Sing to Me

Three years ago, a miracle was born. I prayed that she would sing. Before she was born, before she was even conceived—I prayed that God would give her the gift of melody. I’d had a dream of a young girl with a powerful voice. When she sang, men cried and women would fall to their […]

A Tale of a Lost Sheep and Some Wolves

Scripture tells us an odd story of a loving shepherd who had a hundred sheep, but one went missing. And this shepherd does something crazy. He leaves the 99 and goes in search of the one. It seems reckless, doesn’t it? Reckless and unwise. Why isn’t he satisfied with the 99 he has? Why aren’t […]

Daddy’s Girl

My two-year-old toddler has an obsessive attachment to her dad these days. When he’s walking, she’s by his side. When he’s sitting, she’s crawling all over him. When he leaves the room for just a second, a pathetic cry can be heard throughout the house . . . “Daddy! Where’s . . . daddy? Where’s […]

The Sound of Regret

There is a sound in ice hockey that makes the die-hard fan wince in pain, wishing that the gods of sport had shown an extra inch of favor. It is the telltale ping of a puck hitting the post of the goal. Often times, the precision shot flies so fast that you can’t see it, […]

A Fresh Faith

My son got saved at church last Sunday. After a passionate sermon and a moving invitation, I peeked over just in time to see his hand shoot up. I didn’t write down the date, though. He got saved the week before that, and the week before that, and a few weeks before that. We’ve gotten […]