It's finally here! My very own website! After weeks of hard work behind the scenes, my amazingly selfless friend has created this beautiful website as a home for my writing, and I am blown away by what he did. Isn't it great to have technological friends? If it were up to me, I'd be handwriting letters to each of you and mailing them through the postal service. :) This website will still house my blog, and you can also find old posts from my original blog. It will also be the hub for all of my writing activity. You'll find the latest information on what I'm working on and exclusive material you won't find anywhere else! (If you look to the right at the top of this page, you'll find a spot where you can subscribe via email and get a free gift, too!) I'm so excited to have this new virtual home, and I'm praying it will be a source of encouragement to you as you enjoy your journey!...

I wanted so badly to do it right. Whatever the Christian life looked like, I wanted to represent it well.

A people-pleaser by nature with perfectionist tendencies, I knew that if I could just find the hidden list of do’s and don’ts, I’d be set. I’d memorize it, practice it, and ace the Christian test.

I would make Jesus, and those around me watching, proud...

When did women not taking care of themselves become a badge of honor? When did it become admirable for a woman to bemoan having no time to herself, no time to enjoy her husband, no time to do anything she wants?I don't like a world where self-destruction is revered.Confession time: I sacrifice time with my family to work out. I let my kids watch TV so I can read a book without pictures. I leave my children with my husband and go to dinner with my girlfriends. I leave my children with their grandparents so I can go to dinner with my husband. I lock them outside to play with all the toys we spent all the money on so I can eat a brownie in peace and quiet!!! (Mine are 9 and 10, so they are perfectly fine - don't question my parenting. I didn't do it when they were 2 and 3. Much.)In other words, I make a habit of taking care of myself. Call me selfish, but it's what I need to stay sane. You ultra-moms out there who are convinced 5 minutes to yourself is a luxury you can't afford? You WILL burn out. Trust me...

I'm so afraid that the church - the broad, nationwide collection of believers who amass to worship and grow - has contributed to a society where wrong is ignored and people are marginalized and hate is fanned into flame. Not in sermons preached from the pulpit, necessarily, and not in words from hate-mongering pastors, but in the quietly obvious lack of love and acceptance and true ministering to souls whose default is sin. We are all messed up people, sinners in need of redemption, and we all have an equally deep need for the mercy of the Savior who passionately loves us and completely forgives us. But in looking at the church, it's often hard to see that we messed up people are equal and that the church loves us all as equally as the One we worship does. The church, I'm afraid, doesn't reflect Christ. The church, I'm afraid, reflects the racism and classicism and sexism of its society.I have spent years worshiping in churches where every member looked just like me. White, middle class, steady job and active 401k. I have worshiped in churches where people whisper if a black man walks in and are offended more by a...

Every morning, my daughter wakes up and immediately asks, "What are we going to do today?" (She's the curious one in the family, the one who must be in the know. My son never asks - we can be driving down the interstate, halfway to our destination, before he wonders where we're going and what we're doing. Their personalities could not be more different.)Listen, I don't fault her for wanting to know. When you're the shortest one in the house, at the mercy of the licensed drivers and decision makers, it's only natural to be curious about what's coming next. But this summer, the question "what are we going to do today" has come to mean something entirely different.And I despise it.It means, "Mom, what fun, exciting, thrill-seeking, never-done-before activity have you spent weeks planning (and a small fortune on) for us to do?" Here's the thing. I don't subscribe to the theory that my job as a mother is to make my children's every waking moment magical. Yeah, I want them to have fun and enjoy the relaxation that summer brings, BUT. I refuse to spend every moment of my life in a carefully choreographed dance of "entertain the children"...

The other night, I had myself a little hissy fit.The house was empty except for me, so I had a good cry - the kind where it's hard to breathe and you make strange, unintelligible noises.Why?Motherhood.All I could see in those moments were my failures and shortcomings, the problems I face and the circumstances that overwhelm.My mothering life is likely different from yours. I am divorced and remarried, so custody arrangements and visitation schedules, especially during the summer, are inescapable truths. Our schedule is a finely tuned instrument requiring coordination and calendars, planning and production. And though it looks nice and neat on the calendar, it is its own special hell for me.It means that I, a mommy, am sometimes without my children. Those blue cells on the calendar represent nights, and during the summer, weeks, without those who grew within me. I cannot explain the agony.My tears were set off by a sweet night with my sisters. We - and their children - met for ice cream. But my own children weren't there, and it hurt. I just wanted to be "normal," yelling at my kids not to get too close to the road and cleaning up their ice...

After nine years in a classroom, I'm leaving education. I will walk out of my empty room on Tuesday with books packed away and memories stored in my heart, leaving behind hundreds of adolescents who walked through the door looking for what they didn't know they needed.Honestly, I don't know if I gave them anything.I tried really hard, that's for sure. I wrote curriculum and read professional books and took classes to get better.I read adolescent novels and included the classics and tried to teach them some grammar.But as far as what they got? Who really knows. That's the agonizing peculiarity of education. You never really know how you did, even with test scores and data being thrown all around. You never really know if you made an impact that will be remembered beyond the last day of school. You never really know.I sure don't.If you're looking for a diatribe against the American education system, you won't find it here. I have a lot of thoughts on our system and a lot I think needs to be changed, but I'll keep those thoughts inside until the time is right to voice them.Here's what I do know: I can't stay. Not because...