So far, this year has been met with incredible suffering for some friends that I love: a parent’s death, a broken marriage, a cancer diagnosis, a hospitalized family member. Each day I think, When will the pain end, God? Show Yourself in the midst of all of this. It is difficult for me to point to You right now. Yes, I know that Scripture tells ...
My second child is a little girl, and I joke that she has been strong-willed and stubborn from her earliest days in my womb. I was incredibly sick during that pregnancy, throwing up sometimes six times a day. I was hospitalized twice for fluids during my first trimester. It was as awful as it sounds, and some days my only prayer was, Please let me ...
In college, I was one of those people that was always doing something with friends. I was in volunteer organizations. I was an RA and planned events for my residents. I would study at the library in small groups. In short, as a young adult, I thrived being in community with other people. I didn’t realize then that this lifestyle of working well ...
Today, we’re celebrating with (in)courage mentor and book club co-founder Jessica Turner as she releases a brand new hardback, Stretched Too Thin: How Working Moms Can Lose the Guilt, Work Smarter, and Thrive. It’s an empowering and practical guide for all kinds of working moms, be it full-time or part-time, at home or somewhere else. Here’s an ...
Growing up, I was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities including the school newspaper, yearbook, plays and musicals, forensics, student council, and more. If you look in the yearbook from my senior year, they had to make the font smaller to list all of my activities! My parents recognized that having my hands in lots of activities ...
On the second day of this year, we threw a party for my son, Ezra, who’d just turned one. Metallic streamers and three-dimensional gold stars hung all over the dining room to celebrate “twinkle, twinkle little star, he’s grown so much and come so far.” About 20 friends joined us that morning and all of our kids were running amuck around the ...
I said to a friend the other day, “I’m at the bottom of my barrel. I must take a break.” I was talking about writing specifically, but really about life these days. For the past 14 months, I have worked tirelessly. At the beginning of 2016, I chose the word “slow” as a reminder for me that this year needed to be different than 2015’s breakneck ...
Do you ever get to the end of your day and realize you did nothing for you? Folded laundry? Check. Wiped runny noses? Check. Prepared three meals? Check. But read that book you’ve been wanting to read? Not so much. With the new year having just begun, it's the perfect opportunity to reset and make yourself a priority. Practicing self-care ...
With just over a week until Christmas, I've been feeling a bit frantic. I haven't wrapped a single gift, my beautiful cards' envelopes are still unlicked and unstamped, and I still want our family to go for a drive and see some lights. This pressure is self-imposed, and I know none of these things are the real reason for Christmas, but they ...
Last Sunday I sent a text message during church. Don’t judge. My pastor Pete told me to. You see, we are in the middle of this series called Now or Never, where we are talking about living a life filled with intention, relationships, love, faith, and joy. Pete has been pushing us to think about what we'd do if we had a week left to live and ...
