atlas girl
This post is part of the Atlas Girl Blog Tour which I am delighted to be a part of along with hundreds of inspiring bloggers. To learn more and join us, click here. *** Years of anorexia. Disillusionment with the church. A grandmother's suicide. A two-year break-up. A mother with brain cancer. A heartbreaking miscarriage. Emily Wierenga's story is not an easy one. It's not easy, and yet she tells it with such grace and gratitude in her new memoir, Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the Last Place I Thought to Look, published by Baker Books. Emily is an artist, and her gifts shine through as...
Letter to a New Bride :: Marriage Advice for Newlyweds
Dear newly married bride, You probably don’t remember me. I was behind you in line at the County Clerk’s office the day you picked up your marriage license. I sat in the row of chairs against the wall of windows that let the June sunshine filter in, my three kids sandwiched between my husband and me. You heard that I was there for passport applications, and you kindly turned around to point out the paperwork on the counter. My husband asked if you were also applying for a passport, to which you cheerfully replied, “Nope! Marriage license.” We later overheard that you would be...
lost
Linking up once again with the lovely Lisa-Jo Baker for Five-Minute Friday, and this week the prompt is LOST. It was the day after I had flown over an ocean with three kids in tow, the day after we had landed to find her too weak to rise from the couch, the day after she had fallen twice, even depending on her black, shiny walker. It was hours after my sister and I had knelt on either side of her bed, tears welling up from the bottom of our guts, churning and fighting against it all as we eventually surrendered and agreed that she should stop chemo after four consecutive years of nonstop...
best vacation stories
The High Calling is looking for your best vacation stories! Click here to read about how you can share yours (by the June 28 deadline). In the meantime, here's one of my best stories -- or, at least the one that seems to get repeated most frequently at family get-togethers. 🙂 For those who follow this blog, it's a re-run from one of my Memoir Monday posts. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to dying. The setting: The Kern River of Southern California, Class III/IV whitewater rapids. I was in high school, and it was spring break. It was my first time rafting, and I basically held...
pass it on
We used to play "Telephone" in elementary school, that game where the first person in the row cups his hand to the ear of the next person, and whispers a message into the waiting listener, who in turn would shift from left to right and whisper what they heard into the next link in the chain. Of course, what made the game fun was how scrunched up and twisted the original message became after passing through several hushed voices and recipients before finally landing at the caboose. But we played and we laughed, and we played again. And then I think about the message of the gospel, passed...
defining grace
It was a balmy, mid-October day in Cape Town, and life was clipping along at its usual, steady beat. The proverbial foot had been lifted from the accelerator long enough to take a Sabbath rest, and we had just returned home from church. I can’t remember if lunch had been devoured already, or was yet to be prepared, but my husband called me to the rust-colored, fake leather chairs and told me to sit down. He handed me an envelope, and I paused, perplexed. It wasn’t our anniversary. It wasn’t my birthday. I looked at his face for a clue, but it was a blank slate. Slowly opening the mystery...
introducing …
My friend Bronwyn Lea invited me to do a Writers' Blog Hop with her. A what? Well, I'll explain that in a minute, but first allow me to introduce Bronwyn. You may have met her here before, actually. Exactly a year ago, I re-posted a moving piece of hers called A Letter to a Hurting Friend. Then last October, I convinced her to be a sucker for punishment with me, as we both embarked on our first 31 Days series with The Nester. Around Day 17, we had both hit a wall, and somehow mutually came up with the ingenious plan to swap blogs for a day. So we did. Her guest post on my blog...
strength
We lost a good friend this week. One of the best, actually. Head-on collision. Six dead. Just like that, the candle was snuffed out. And the shock, it’s taking a long time to wear off, and I keep thinking, hoping, praying that it will all be just a terrible nightmare, and I will soon wake up to find out that thank God, it was just a bad dream. But it wasn’t, and he’s gone. And I cried out to the Lord to “Take it back! Just take it back! Press rewind, reverse time, and change it. Please.” And even though my faith is weathered, in the face of the storm, I still ask, “Why?” Why did it have...
hands
They have her hands. Especially her thumbs. She was ninety years and two generations ahead of them, but they got her genes. And I notice almost every day. When they grasp their pencil and purse their lips in concentration, I see it. When they lean their bony elbows into my rib cage trying to close the gap and see the pictures, I notice. The same thumbs that used to rub my back to help me fall asleep on Thursday nights when Mom was at her prayer meeting. The same hands that would conceal her cards when we played Kings in the Corner at the octagonal table in her condo. The hands that...
marriage books :: my top four recommendations
Know someone who is experiencing conflict in their marriage? Looking for a boost in your own relationship? Going to a wedding this summer? Here is my personal list of books I recommend on marriage. [Tweet "Looking for a book on #marriage? Check out this list of recommendations!"] My husband and I have been married for over a decade, and since he is a pastor, we've had numerous opportunities to meet with couples for marriage counseling. Whenever someone asks me for a good book on marriage, these books are included in my answer: Love and Respect, by Emerson...
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