One Small Note . . . Beyond Perfect In our culture, we are so programmed to look for and expect perfection. Before we buy something we make sure it has not even a tiny scratch, and if it does have a flaw, we expect to pay far less for it. Imperfection, after all, decreases its …
Have you ever experienced amnesia? You only have amnesia if you know something and forget it. And it feels worse when you really, really know something and you forget it . . . like last weekend when I experienced a case of parenting or relationship-building amnesia. And I believe that parenting is first and foremost about …
Truth be told, Halloween has never been my favorite holiday. Except for one thing and one thing only. Candy. I have always had a sweet tooth and we rarely had candy in our home. We had the best food you could ask for as we lived on a large farm. But not candy. It was …
Yesterday my husband and I had nursery duty at our church. It is a wonderful nursery filled with toys that I found myself wishing I had known about even five years ago for our grandchildren. This time there was only one absolutely adorable 20 month old girl to watch. When it came time for her …
Summertime can be the season for “boo-boos.” At some point during the summer you can be pretty sure that many children (and adults) have sported a wound. Parents have likely scouted for ice cubes, cool cloths, fancy band aids, first aid cream, itch medicine etc. to apply to scraped knees, split open chins, bee stings …
This summer I have been thinking a lot about roots and wings. As you already know, I have been fascinated by hummingbird wings. It has reawakened memories. When I was a child struggling with low self-esteem, I daydreamed about what it would be like to have wings like birds and butterflies. Interestingly, my …
He is six years old and proudly tells you so. As with all children, I learn so much about life and about myself from him. This time a couple of lessons came from watching him play a game of balance. A Wii game for him, a metaphor for me. It happened a couple of weeks …
On Father’s Day our children hosted a cookout for their beloved “pops” and “bumpa” (grandpa). The day was perfect. The sun was shining and like Goldilocks would say, “it was neither too hot nor too cold. It was just right.” The smell of hots and hamburgers cooking on the grill seemed to call us …
I know it sounds strange. You might say, “Duh! Of course parents are people!” But many times once we become a parent we don’t accept ourselves as a real person. Suddenly we become “mother” or “father” and are filled with “should know this” and “should do that” and/or ” should never say or do this …
CHRISTMAS EVE REFLECTIONS: ( Humiliated or Humbled?) So many people have stories from childhood about the Christmas season. I know some of you do not celebrate Christmas, but even for those who do not view Christmas as God’s intervention for a dreary world, it still is generally experienced as a delightful interruption, where …