True Life With God

13th
of
May

The Mix of Mother’s Day Emotions

On the cusp of this Mother’s Day, I remember my worst Mother’s Day. Sometimes, I still wake in a sweat, heart pounding, reaching for the phone. “I need to call my mom,” I think. And then, in an instant, I remember reality. I put the phone down on my nightstand. In 2022, My mother was a year older than I will be on August 2, the day she gave birth to me, her first of three — just shy of ten pounds and two weeks past due date. She was 22 then. She was 65 on Mother’s Day morning, 21 years ago. The numbers are branded into my brain. Two weeks before that particular Mother’s Day, Mom and I

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freedom in Christ, gratitude, grief, healing, hope, loss, love, Mother's Day, mothers, peace, resting in God, suffering

20th
of
June

Finding Joy in the Garden of Disabilities and Special Needs

I kneel in my garden bed. It has been freshly tilled and spread with a layer of composted manure. We have an ample supply, given that we have four horses on our farm. As rust-breasted bluebirds flit to-and-from nearby nesting boxes, I’m thinking about raising vegetables, flowers, and kids with special needs for the past twenty-five years. Today, pumpkins are my main goal. I pull soil toward me with my arms, making six large mounds, each six feet apart. I plunge twelve cream-colored teardrops into each heap of sun-kissed earth. Finished, I stand and brush off my dirt-caked knees, grab the garden hose, and water the invisible seed wonders—seeds holding life just waiting to break through. Kind of like

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caregiving, disabilities, gratitude, guest post, hope, parenting, special needs

6th
of
April

The Importance of Self-Care for Caregivers, Part 2

Hi friends! Today, I’m over at my friend Jolene Philo’s blog with the second part of a series on the importance of self-care for caregivers that I’ve practiced for decades. I hope you’ll find some of these ideas helpful to you on your caregiving journey. Jolene prefaces my piece with this: The importance of self-care for caregivers is a reality Heather MacLaren Johnson has learned to deal with in her own life. She shared that story In Part 1 of this series. Today she finishes the series with specific, practical ideas for caregivers like you and me. And now, here’s the beginning of my post: In February, I wrote about a lesson learned from fighting conchs washed up on