We have a flip calendar at work with Bible verses on it, and yesterday I turned the page to a treasure. Let’s stop here and talk about our desperate need for encouragement. A couple of weeks ago, Matt took our truck into the shop and got a call saying we needed a $14,000 repair. In…
Dear friends, you are looking at a brand new certified Dave Ramsey Coach! Confetti, please. My favorite hobby is being in school, if you want to stop for a moment and have sympathy for my poor husband. In our bathroom is a little stand holding a stack of sign language flashcards my mom gave me…
I can’t believe they’re bringing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition back to TV. It’s satisfying to see a family’s crumbling, sad home transformed, in a matter of days, into all that they had hoped and needed. That brings me to my great cookbook project as I enter the new year. Let me introduce you to my…
I went to the doctor for an annual physical a few weeks ago and faced the scale, the blood pressure cuff, the stethoscope and the blood draw. Those measuring instruments did not care what my January 2024 resolutions were. They only assessed the reality of how I had been living all year. “On a scale…
His brother was carefully lining up dominoes in a straight line on the floor, and this two-year-old little man wanted to do exactly the same thing, except his dimpled fingers weren’t able to pull off the same precision. I could see his frustration growing, until finally he pushed the dominoes away, screamed, and stood up….
A year ago, my boss turned to me and asked, “How do you do with change?” At that time, the question only stirred up pain. But it turned out to be a question God would use to help me make one of the biggest changes of my life. Could I change from a church I…
We don’t have central air conditioning. It’s Montana, so we have many months that require flannel sheets but only a few weeks in each year that require lemonade. I have low tolerance for those hot days in the 80’s and 90’s, though, so when I wake up in the middle of the night (always), I…
For seven months, we powered through a massive life change of leaving our precious church of 30 years and crossing town to a new church job, where we faced the immediate crunch of trying to build structure for over 150 people where there had only been about 30 people before. It was hard and wonderful…
One is four and the other is two. They are brothers. Yesterday, when I had my grandsons over to my house, the eldest asked the youngest sweetly if he could please play with a few of the toy horses. The youngest said a cheerful yes and shared. Then the eldest did a quiet, hostile takeover,…
Forty-five minutes into a baby shower on Saturday, I experienced an overwhelming fatigue and felt almost physically ill because I was so tired. It had been building all day. Thankfully, I was sitting by the back door. I slipped out, drove home, and crawled into bed for the next two hours. Matt and I had…
Work, husband, kids, grandkids, parents, friends, cousins, church family, neighbors? There are just so many people and I’m trying to be perfect in all of these relationships, except I am NOT. Many of these interactions are sticky, some like a big glob of sap stuck to the bottom of your shoe and some like that…
I sat in front of my two counselors, after spending three full days walking back through all of the traumatic events of the last four years, which largely involved a deception at church that caused immeasurable pain and loss for us in every direction. (This is why I haven’t written very much in the last…
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