I have never been abused or molested. I have not been mistreated by men close to me, or put in a position that made someone else’s sin feel like my own and haunt me like a shadow for years. But I want to write to those of you who are victims, who do carry this kind of shame or anger or guilt or fear with you every day.

I know that I am walking into a subject that is full of emotions that I do not know personally, and honestly, that is the reason that I do not usually talk about them. All that said, it is on my heart to write about this right now, and I hope that you may find it helpful.  Give me some grace here as I try to bring the beauty of the Gospel into a dark and difficult part of some of your lives. Read More

Disclaimer: this post may bore you to death. Or it could save your life. It’s hard to say. It’s about the very mundane details of breakfast. So if the mundane details of breakfast are killing you like they were me, then this is for you!

Breakfast is a crazy time in our house, and while we have tried all kinds of different things, we had settled into oatmeal most mornings. While my kids love cereal, it isn’t really a great choice. It makes me think of when I passed out in the bathroom at school, and it is certainly not a cost effective choice when you have a pile of children who can eat. So oatmeal was our game. Old fashioned oats from Costco. And it worked. It was fine. Whatever. Sometimes we burned it while I was doing hair away from the stove. Sometimes we didn’t want to clean out the burned oatmeal pan. I tried a crock pot oatmeal thing but we didn’t like it, as it was super gluey and weird. Read More

(I was asked to give my testimony at our monthly Ladies Fellowship meeting.)

In the sense that we have come to think of testimonies, I do not have one. I can honestly say that I do not remember a time when I did not know God.

I do remember when I actually prayed with my mom – I was lying in bed in my little pink bedroom that was in our tiny blue house right here in Moscow. I was afraid of the dark and she told me not to be afraid because God was everywhere. I said He was in my heart too, and she said no He wasn’t, and I prayed on the spot. I was three when that happened – but I am fairly certain that I already loved the Lord and that was just when I made it “official.”  Read More

When we are suffering in a difficult situation, or working through a trial, or tempted by a besetting sin, one of the first things that we think is how alone we feel. We feel alone because we are the only person we know who is struggling with depression. We feel lonely because we don’t see other people dealing with chronic illness. We feel lonely because we want people to be right beside us as we work through something. And the easiest thing in the world is to blame the rest of the church for not knowing. For not understanding how we feel. For not struggling the same struggle with us. For saying things that were unfeeling. Do they not love us? Read More