Holding True Hope
I write a lot about hope. I suppose it’s because I’m a huge believer in hope. As a former therapist and now as a life coach helping women deal with loss and grief, I know how shattering life can be and the necessity for holding onto hope. I think about hope this morning, when I […]
When Life Crushes Your Heart
While walking along the Atlantic Ocean, I spot an auburn-haired beauty bending, kneeling, spreading her hand on the sand. Is she simply imprinting her palm? Or is she holding the hand of God? Maybe she’s doing both. Because the God who can bind the chains of the Pleiades and loosen Orion’s belt (Job 38:31) knows […]
The Mountains of Special Needs Parenting
In August, my husband Todd and I hiked the Highline trail in Glacier National Park. As the name of the trail implies, the path cut along the side of a mountain and was so narrow near the beginning that a thick wire cable drilled into the rock served as a handrail, lest a misstep cause […]
Out of Africa [About Covid-19 and Raising Kids with Special Needs]: Part 2
We returned to a world changed suddenly and dramatically. Masks, social distancing, school and business closings, job losses, blaming, shaming, raw nerves flaring. From bliss to this? Shocking, to say the least. So what can an awe-inspiring African safari and a frightful Covid-19 pandemic teach us about living with and raising kids with special needs? […]
Out of Africa [About Covid-19 and Raising Kids with Special Needs]
One year ago, on March 1, my husband, my 87-year-old father, and I boarded a KLM flight from Chicago to Tanzania (via Amsterdam) for a two-week African safari. After a year of planning and excited anticipation, we were about to experience the most marvelous part of creation we had ever witnessed (except for having kids?). […]
What To Do With Screaming Fear and Searing Grief
Right in the middle of our country road, a couple hundred yards from our farm’s gravel drive, past ravine with creek winding and pines soaring, a woman collapses into my arms sobbing, screaming, pulling her hair side-ways hard. HE’S DEAD! HE’S DEAD! I KNOW HE’S DEAD! I didn’t know her. She looked 30-something, physically fit, […]
Redemption of Mother’s Day: How to Heal Your Hurts
About two hours after Mother’s Day ended, my mother died in her bed of a massive heart attack. She was 65. Mom called her doctor, only hours after I talked with her the morning of that special day. He told her to get to the hospital ASAP after hearing her symptoms—profuse sweating, vomiting, shoulder pain. […]
Finding Meaning & Hope in Life’s Burns
On a sunny spring morning with nearly no breeze, I stood in the still-dormant grass of the ditch just a half-mile up from our home. I watched that old, white farmhouse burn. Flames swirled orange out of every window and door. I felt the heat on my face from across the street. Our 25-year-old son […]
I Didn’t Want a Different Dream
My friend and fellow author, Jolene Philo, runs a helpful website dedicated to special needs kids and their caretakers. I’ve read all her books and have found her knowledge extremely helpful on my own journey in caring for special needs kids that led to my own special needs. After 21 years (this month) of caring […]
Is There A Better Way?
For weeks it seems my well has run dry of words. I sit with fingers on keys, anticipating. Not much of anything. Sometimes, I wonder. What if writing has been only for a season? What if God is calling me to pull up my tent stakes and follow His glory cloud into some other unknown […]
Loving and Forgiving Our Mothers this Mother’s Day
Hi Friends! I’m over at Jolene Philo’s Different Dream blog today for a special Mother’s Day piece I wrote. Hope you’ll join me there (link below). You won’t want to miss the surprise ending. Here’s the beginning: “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!” “You sent me flowers! They’re gorgeous! But you told me you weren’t going to […]
Holding on When You’re on the Edge
I’m not kidding. The first five minutes of the mule ride down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon produced a surprising panic in me. After all, I’m an accomplished equestrian, and I’m not particularly afraid of heights. Or, so I thought. I’ve hiked steep, narrow trails on mountains many times. Yet, I had no […]