Over lunch, we talk of how we first imagined ourselves as mothers, smiling down at our fingers. I’ve always longed to be the Proverbs 31 woman.  She is clothed with strength and dignity, Word says.  She can laugh at the days to come.  I don’t know, but somehow the unmanicured edges of my fingernails seem […]

Source: trendingfitnessblog.com via Elysa on Pinterest She doesn’t know me, so I say it without hesitation, handing her a tissue: Just…punch today in the face. Maybe it seems like an odd thing to say in an elevator, after she’s pushed the down and turned to me, tears still marking up her cheeks, after she’s crumbled a […]

She’s afraid she’ll wake up and I’ll be forever gone, that the darkness will steal me away from her. We sit together all curled up, watching something on TV.  I absently stroke her hair with my fingers, gently nudging out the tangles, and she tries to move closer, to squeeze out all the space between […]

I do not know all the things she has suffered. But when she comes to the door, looking empty, I think of something Mother Theresa once said about seeing Christ in His most distressing disguises.  I look in her face, and I see Christ.  And I wonder, Can she see Him now, as she looks […]

The morning rushes from the start.  Light, cold and sterling, glowing fresh, bleeds through the curtains.  We swing our legs toward the chill, gathering hope, tucking promises deep. In the first moments of waking, we dress for battle.  The sword flashes, Powerful Word cutting away and shaping new, and we whisper prayers, and we get […]

“DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) is a medical emergency, and without treatment it can lead to death.” This truth makes me shudder as I kneel beside my son and scrub the leg of his jeans where he points, where some of the toxic sickness missed the bucket beside him and soiled his clothes.  Sick Adam is strong, […]

We walk in the museum as the day turns to shadow—my sister-friend and I and our bouncing scribble of children.  Our group moves like an earthworm—fat and thick in the middle, undulating in a thin, crooked line in front and behind.  We are multi-colored coats, scarves, boots and tennis shoes, wading into the snarl in […]

Something about the way he broke that day reminded me that living is cross-shaped. “Adam has been crying for the last few hours,” she says to me, the aide instead of the teacher, walking carefully to my window as I park the car. “The last few hours?” Oh, how the living hurts, how it drives […]

She sits, curled on my bed, the polish on her toes slightly chipped, and she reads, absently pushing an errant blonde wisp back from her forehead. I am struck by her beauty, the beauty of having her near. The reading has absorbed her, first her Bible, then the devotional book we gave her for her […]

Clouds the deepest gray, hovering close, and I gather myself into the van to retrieve my children, preparing for the storm.  It will rain soon, and hard.  I can smell it. And I never have enough for this part of the day. Honestly, I laugh and sometimes cry whenever I hear that someone thinks I […]