When I was eight years old, my parents bought me a 35-millimeter camera, an oblong pink, plastic thing with the name “Barbie” splashed across the top in that neon lettering so characteristic of the late eighties. I loved that camera and the ability to grab a moment and memorialize it in printed form whenever my…
Motherhood
Parenting, Unpictured
I remember what I was wearing the first time I held each of my children. Not hospital gowns, for my kids didn’t come to me that way. With my oldest, I wore a black blouse with white stitching around the neck and arms. I had a short, angled bob with blonde highlights at the time….
Very Good Gifts
We pushed back and forth on the patio swing. He fights the lilt because it gives him a little bit of motion sickness, but after all these years together he knows that I will always force the swing to move if I’m sitting on it. Otherwise, it’s just a chair. Our boys run around the backyard…
Can I Trust God with My Child’s Suffering?
He was eating a waffle. Just sitting across the café table from me, all gangly arms and legs, eating a waffle that he’d covered in maple syrup. He’s just turned ten, and I’m increasingly aware of the mere three inches between our heights. I picked at my salad, trying to decide if a cup of…
Changing Diapers to the Glory of God
It was an exceptionally trying day. My energetic and precocious two-year old had gotten away from me more than once during our quick errands to the library and post office. Employees at both venues laughed and nodded and offered commiserating quips about the “terrible twos.” I forced laughter while wrestling my squirrelly toddler to the…
Simplicity and Front Doors
Dishes are stacked high in both sinks, spilling over on to the counter tops. Of course, there are also the stock pots on the stove, waiting to be scrubbed down. Trails of bread crumbs meander through the house, evidence of children who found the table to be too crowded with adult conversation. Hardened, dried spaghetti…
Memories and Remembering: How Advent Gets it Right {guest post}
A couple of weeks ago, I described my family’s tree decorating scenario to a friend. Full of whining, disciplining, grumbling, and short tempers, it was a not the memory-making night I had planned, and my friend laughed when she said she knew exactly what I meant. She gave me a rundown of the hectic experience…
I Don’t Promise My Kids That God Will Keep Them Safe.
I was five years old and tucked into a bed that was pushed up next to a quaking window. Outside, tree branches bent and swayed beneath slashing sheets of rain and house-shuddering winds. Tornado sirens were blaring while lightning lit up the sky every few seconds. I remember curling up into as small a figure…
To the Brink: a Tribute to Parents
The first eight months of our youngest son’s life epitomized uncertainty to me. I rocked a baby against my chest every night, a solid fragile weight pressed next to my heart, not knowing if I would ever be able to call him “son.” It was the riskiest version of love I’d ever known. As every adoptive parent…