My friend discovered a nest in a tree next to her driveway, and she watched it all summer. It was perfectly hidden behind a few branches but easily seen when you knew which ones to pull back. Each time my friend bent one of those branches, she witnessed a new stage of development happening right…
I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. (Psalm 34:4-5 ESV) Of all the negative emotions I’ve dealt with, none hits me with as much force as mom guilt. Mom guilt is a unique…
As a mom of boys, I often hear that it must be nice to have a drama-free house, and while that is mostly true, now that we’re parenting teenagers, some mornings are a rollercoaster of emotions that can leave me spinning for hours if I’m not careful. Occasionally our boys sleep straight through their alarms,…
Louisa May Alcott’s ship came in after a publisher suggested she write a novel for girls. The resulting Little Women took the world by storm in 1868, as her story of the four March sisters and their family captivated the hearts of young and old, completely reversing the Alcotts’ financial fortune in the process. Just…
Flashback: I’m twenty-one and in my first semester of teaching high school English. I show my mentor teacher my senior English roster, and she scrunches up her nose and takes a deep breath before telling me this is the most incomprehensible combination of students she’s ever seen. “If I had to pick twenty of the…
My five kids sometimes do the grocery shopping with me. We often use two carts, the oldest boy pushing one and me pushing the other. The second oldest boy checks off items on our list. The youngest two boys trail along, and my baby girl is in my cart. Without fail, another shopper will say,…