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Ten Years Later: Eight Days I will Never Forget.

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                There are some dates that don’t just live on in a calendar, they live in your heart. Ten years ago, we said goodbye to my brother at just 55 years old. Even now, the number still feels too young. Too much life left to be lived. Too many phone calls that never got to happen. Too many laughs we thought we still had time for. What stands out most in my mind, isn’t just the day he passed away, it’s the eight long days before it. Eight days of sitting beside him, taking shifts with his wife, our siblings, and his family and friends. Eight days of watching someone you love slip away. Eight days of hoping, praying, remembering, and preparing your heart for something you know you can never truly prepare for. As stressful, heart breaking and exhausting as it is, there is something special about sitting with someone in their final days, it strips life down to what really matters. Not success, work schedules, or small disagre...
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Rediscovering Roots

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                                        Rediscovered Roots Sometimes God gives us unexpected gifts when we aren't even looking for them. Recently, I reconnected with my cousin Georgia, someone I hadn't seen in many years. Life, distance, and time have a way of quietly creating gaps between people, even family. But through emails, messages, and occasional visits, we've begun building something new, not just reconnecting, but truly getting to know each other as adults. One of the greatest blessings has been discovering that she and her husband, Gerry share the same faith that anchors my life. There is something deeply comforting about that kind of connection. Conversations just feel different when you know someone loves the Lord too. There is an understanding that goes deeper than small talk. As I've spent time with Georgia, I sometimes catch glimpses of her mother, my Aunt...
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When Identity Becomes A Trend

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                Lately I’ve been watching the cultural landscape shift in ways that are hard to ignore. Things that once seemed rare or deeply personal are now talked about almost like trends. Identities are being adopted, redefined, and reshaped in ways that previous generations would have struggled to understand. People are identifying as things their biology does not reflect, boys are identifying as girls, girls as boys and some young people are even identifying as different species. These aren’t just things I’ve heard about, one day when Mike and I were driving home from dialysis, we saw a person who probably refers to themselves as a “furry”, walking across a snow covered lawn, on all fours, with a tail attached to it’s shorts. Online communities encourage adopting identities that, a few years ago, most people had never even heard of. The latest trend that appears to be growing alongside it: the rewriting of childhood.  More ...
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The Battle Between Anger and Grace

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                    There are days when being a Christian feels natural, and then there are days when it feels like work. Not because I don’t love God. Not because I don’t want to do the right thing. It’s because my human heart feels something completely different than what my faith calls me to show. Sometimes what I feel is anger. Not petty anger or selfish anger, but the kind that rises up when you see good, faithful, dependable people treated unfairly. When you watch people who show up, do the right thing and stay loyal get over looked, misunderstood, or disrespected.  There is something especially painful about watching truth get buried under assumptions. About seeing one opinion accepted as fact without anyone stopping to ask questions. Without anyone caring enough to really understand what actually happened. To be honest, sometimes I don’t struggle with loving strangers. I struggle with loving people I feel sh...
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When Holding Their Hand Becomes Holding Space.

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                   I asked for suggestions for topics to write about and a friend suggested writing about parenting your child when they become a parent. So here goes…. Parenting doesn’t stop when your children become parents themselves, it’s just a slow realization that your role is changing. You’re not the one tying shoes anymore or making the rules. You’re not even the one they call first for every little thing. To be honest, that shift can be bittersweet, because once upon a time, they needed you for everything. I remember when my kids were little and I felt like I had all the answers. Now I realize what they need most from me isn’t the answers, it’s reassurance that they don’t have to have all the answers either. Sometimes being a good parent to your adult children looks like biting your tongue when you want to correct something. Sometimes it looks like answering a frustrated text with “you’re doing better than you think...
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Z is for Zigzag

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                     Twenty-six letters later, I’ve found myself looking back as much as I’m looking forward. When I started this A-Z series, I thought of it as a simple exercise, one letter at a time. A way to reflect on life through small pieces of the alphabet. What I didn’t expect was how much it would feel like retracing the path behind me. That path has never been exactly straight. Z is for Zigzag Life rarely moves in neat, orderly lines the way the alphabet does. It bends, it doubles back. It pauses in places you never expected to stay so long. Some letters held joy. Some held lessons I learned the hard way. Some carried quiet moments I might have missed if I hadn’t stopped long enough to name them. Looking back I can see the story wasn’t built from the big milestones alone. It was shaped by resilience when things were uncertain, patience when plans unraveled, quiet when life felt loud, vulnerability when telling ...
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Y is for the Younger Me.

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                   Y is for younger me, the version of myself that loved deeply, tried hard but still had so much to learn about patience, faith, grace, forgiveness, marriage and parenting . Had I known then what I know now, I would have parented a little differently. I would have led with more patience for my children and for the man I was building a life with. Back then life felt louder, busier and more urgent. There were schedules to keep, bills to pay and four kids growing up faster than I realized. I thought being a good parent meant staying on top of everything, correcting, guiding and making sure they turned out right. Truthfully, most of us parent the best way we know how with the tools we have at the time.  Years have a way of softening things. They teach that every messy moment doesn’t need fixing, that some lessons come with time, not lectures. That patience isn’t weakness, it’s love with room to breathe. The ...
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