Do you ever feel invisible? As if somehow your children don’t even see you running around the house like the energizer bunny? As if your husband is entirely oblivious to the mighty work you are doing on his behalf? Certainly the world outside your home is quite unaware of the miracle of survival inside your four walls every day. Especially in January.
Read MoreI almost wasn’t brave enough to put it up this year. Do all hearts come home for Christmas? Really? In this season of life, I’ve actually given this question considerable thought. Slowly, I am learning that hearts can come home even when bodies don’t. Good to know.
Read More“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” (Psalm 137:4 KJV)
I keep hearing this plaintive cry of the Israelites from the pain-laced Psalm 137. Though I’m not living in exiIe as they were, I am living in a strange land of my own. It is strange for many reasons, some sharable and some not. As I near completion of radiation for breast cancer, I am also struggling with glaucoma issues that cause me to live my life between the radiation clinic and the ophthalmology office—and the couch. And November is always my month of special thanks-giving.
Read More“Dear World, It will not always be like this.” This Facebook post caught my eye yesterday. Particularly because it comes from a beautiful young mother of four who is wise beyond her years as she grieves the tragic loss of her Marine pilot husband less than two years ago.
It didn’t just catch my eye. It lingered in my heart as I walked into our Mom to Mom Leaders’ prayer time.
Read MoreAfter all these years, it still rings in my ears every September. An office supply store in our area used to run a commercial featuring a parent waltzing happily through the store buying school supplies and singing ecstatically “It’s the most wonderful time of the year . . . !” Many a mom, often including me, echoed the sentiment. Of course, for moms sending kids off to daycare or preschool or putting kids on a school bus for the first time felt differently. I remember that, too.
Read MoreThose lazy, hazy days of summer. Where did we get that phrase anyway? All I knew was that whoever coined it was definitely not a mom. But a quick Google inquiry tells me the words are from a Nat King Cole song title. So definitely not a mom. But the title also includes one more word. Key for moms: “Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer.” So the one word is right: crazy. Who knew?
Read MoreThe word bounces around my brain these days. Echoes through the chambers of my heart. Enough. We use it in all kinds of ways. “Enough is enough,” proclaimed the Prime Minister of Britain after the most recent tragic terrorist attack in that country. “Enough!” we tell our children. “I’ve had enough!” Authors, commentators, and wise observers of life remind us: “We live in a ‘never enough’ culture.”
Read MoreThe title may be a bit misleading. First, full disclosure: It’s not actually summer yet here in New England. While we have had a few brief outbursts of summer heat, it is currently cool and rainy, with little or no sun in sight for the upcoming week. In fact, here’s how it really is: when I checked my weather app this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see warmer temps and much more sun than I had heard was predicted. Just one glitch: turn out I was looking at the forecast for Belfast, Northern Ireland, where my daughter lives, not here in Burlington, MA. Those of you who have been to Ireland will get the joke!
Read MoreI can still hear the little voice on the other end of the phone: “Nana, we’re having Easter at our house next Sunday. And . . . can you come over?”
“Oh, how I wish I could, Soren.” My four-year-old grandson, who lives in New Hampshire, had no idea what it would take for me to just “come over” from where I lived in Wisconsin at the time.
Suddenly I am transported to that long ago afternoon when Soren’s father, 4 years old at the time, had invited a friend to come over during Easter week.
Read MoreMarch Madness is alive and well at our house. You could take this in a number of ways. For us right now, it’s all about basketball. Woody loves the suspense and drama of the NCAA tournament with all its twists and turns. And often, I do, too.
But there are many kinds of madness. And I suspect that one or two of you reading this may be experiencing a different kind of March madness. Maybe crazy schedules. You find yourselves caught between winter and spring sports, and the carpool schedule has become a tangled, impossible mess. Or never-ending winter. Will this cold and snow never go away?
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