distraction and the discipline of presence
Distraction can be a welcome relief. But if you're anything like me, maybe it's become a problem.
Posts tagged ‘parenting’
Feb 19
3 Comments
dear mom who is trying to do everything right
I remember reading the list in the What to Expect Book carefully and following every detail. Like I was making a lemon meringue pie. Or replacing the water pump in a car. I had never washed a newborn before! I needed detailed instructions.
dear mom who feels the darkness
May Your unfailing love be with us Lord, even as we put our hope in You. Psalm 33:22
dear mama who worries
I think every mama on this Monday morning will say a prayer. Whether she believes in God or not. Because someone has to watch them. Someone, please.
17 things I say to my kids that I really should say to myself
If anyone anywhere very desperately needed to take her own advice, it would be me.
when you fall asleep writing a title and hit publish on accident
One day, my memory will be even worse. And I will be the lady with the cats and the books and the unruly garden, living on spinach dip and tortilla chips and feeding Dave TV dinners.
6 shortcuts you learn when you’re always in a hurry
because you can only stay up way past your bedtime so many nights in a row before it all catches up with you.
shoes for the season
It's kind of amazing what the right footwear can do. They actually made me want it to rain . . .
a season of uncertainty and certainty
I wrote so many thoughts over the weekend and not one of them is ready for print. Not even on the internet.
I did, however, have a breakthrough last night when I realized the post I had written was the very thing I needed for something else but was definitely not the right thing to post here.
Sometimes, I wish I had written things for people to read when I was so sure, so certain of equations and sums.
If I am this sort of wife then, if I am this sort of mom then, if I am this sort of worker then . . .
But I’m very glad I didn’t. Because now, as much as I may like to think a thing should be this way, or this effort should produce this result, I know outcomes are not always up to me.
Perhaps that is the real crisis of mid-life.
Suddenly, the things you thought were real and true and guaranteed do not turn out as you expected.
The marriage you thought was unbreakable is broken. The effort you put in seems wasted. Children grow up and make their own choices in spite of (and sometimes to spite) you.
I am more reluctant now to open my mouth with certainty. Because what will come of it all is not yet known.
Because the important of yesterday fades as the walk becomes more by faith less by sight. Where I once thought I had a measure of control, I have discovered I have none at all. And the great mystery to me is that the less I am sure of myself, the more I am sure of God.
Because if you ask me if I believe people can change, I will say yes without a shade of doubt.
Ask me if there is hope in the worst of circumstances, and I will say always and never give up.
Ask me if the broken can be restored, and I will say nothing is so broken it cannot be mended.
Ask me how to parent a child, and I will say pray always without ceasing.
Ask me how to keep a marriage together, and I will say forgive.
Most things I write need to sit a while . . . and then filter through life and be worked out . . .
