Jesus
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Looking Back. Seeing His Faithfulness.
If there is one thing I have learned about the special needs (physical/intellectual/emotional/behavioral/learning disabilities/differences- lots of way to phrase this) tribe, is that you upset one of us, you upset us all. Honestly, we try to breathe and let a few things slide, but it’s near impossible to do. I have been having a bit of a need to go back and look through a notebook/journal that my mom kept for both my brother and I. She didn’t write something everyday, but she wrote the key points in our lives at the moment, and funny stories or things we said, our many doctors appointments and school meetings, things that were…
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I see her in everything.
“Grief has made me look for you in everything around me; the clouds, the wind, the butterflies…” I see her in the face of the little girl baptized on Sunday. I see her in the birds outside our window. I see her in the flowers blooming, and the colors they bring to the world. I see her in the choices I make, the words I choose. I hear her in the giggles of children. I feel her when I am wrapped in a muslin blanket. I still have so many moments that I think she is only in the next room, playing hide and seek with my mom. Or maybe…
- "Life" Books, Chronic Illness, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents, Jesus, Mommy, My Little, Single Parenting
What the Sprinkles!?!?!
Oh dear, aww shucks, what the heck…. We do our best to avoid those sneaky four letter words that are so rampant in culture. We quickly try to think of a substitute… That’s what happened with my mom and I when one of us just blurted out, “What the sprinkles!” We were shocked, I don’t even remember what it was about, and sprinkles were in eyesight and so that became the substitute and now is a common phrase around the house. “Potty mouth,” as it was called in the 1990s, was a no-no in our house growing up, but as I have become an adult I have found there are…
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Make a Move!
Today, I am going to share a post that one of my friends shared on Instagram this past week. I met Derrica (pictures of her in High School at YL camps above😊) through Young Life in high school, twenty something years ago, which explains the good ole’ flip phone in the picture (that was some top tech there to all you younger folks!). Derrica, a.k.a. “Mama D,” is one of those friends that you can just say her name and the warmth of her friendship and countenance just fills your soul with an abundance of joy! She was the homecoming queen, the student body president, everybody loves Derrica! But she…
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Caught and Held Accountable
Aaaa! The prayer that many parents have prayed, “our children will be caught and held accountable for their actions.” And I won’t tell how I know that God takes this prayer seriously, but HE DOES, 1000%! Truth. Lies. Grace. Shame. These are just words that we flippantly throw around. “Half truths,” “little white lies or sins,” “shameful lies or sins”… defining these words are strongly influenced by how they were approached growing up. Our core right and wrong feelings and emotions begin before we can even speak or crawl. The reactions of those caring for us initiate the first lessons in molding our opinions and thoughts in these important areas…
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Grief and Grace
The wonderfully crazy little thing called life caught up with me last week, and forced me to rest. My last post, I had written about how some first times are also the last time, by God’s wonderful grace we don’t know this at the time. To be able to have the memories period, becomes a huge place of gratitude for those who experience these first but last times. I know I have written before about the very real physical side of grief, and the toll it can take on your body. Having just gone through and recovering from a really hard week of this form of grief, let me just…
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Courage to Venture
Allow this to soak in for a minute or two. By the way, I recommend this movie. You can read about it in the link above. Two things that you should know: 1. it’s three hours- so create space and time to watch. 2. Be alert to the almost identical parallels to today’s world. The scene that this quote comes from is a scene of a painter who is painting the Biblical frescoes in a church. He spoke this and I believe my heart stopped for a couple seconds and I had to stop and find exactly what he said in writing. As the article states, the whole movie points…
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Peace like a Child
I come to you today, having had a vast array of emotions and feelings over the past several days. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get into why or who or what my emotions and feelings are towards, because the truth is peace can’t be found from people, places, things, policies, etc. However, I will begin by sharing that I have allowed people and policies, especially, to really disrupt my peace. And I have had to ask for forgiveness and confess I have lost sight of the ONLY ONE who can provide perfect peace, my Abba Father. Who when I have become quicker to run to as the week has…
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A Bible, A Window, and A TV
“When I am resting because my body is weak, I need to remember that I’m not wasting the day doing nothing. I am doing exactly what I need to do. I’m recovering.” We are fifteen days into 2025 and I don’t know about you, but I am emotionally, physically, mentally weary and fatigued. This is not a complaint, but a fact about the happenings in our state, nation, and world. It’s a fact about my personal health and health of my family. Fact is fact. I missed writing you last week, because if you remember my Christmas post I had mentioned I was referred to a cardiologist. Everything is fine!…
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All You had to do was Ask
“God kept me close and gave me space all at the same time: to ask the questions, to express my anger, to tell him I didn’t understand. He didn’t, and doesn’t, hold it against me or use it to manipulate me into belief. God used this horrific, awful, inexcusable thing that happened to me to replace my shallow faith with one that could, and did, persist through anything. It doesn’t mean the pain hurts less, or that my disability doesn’t still affect my life every single day. It doesn’t even mean the PTSD and the anxiety and fear come any less often. It does mean when those things come and…
