Category: memories
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Experience or Witness Trauma? PTSD Could Happen to You, Too
My PTSD after Bill’s death made me fear what Satan would drop into my life to strangle me, to make me pay for my complete surrender to God.
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The Most Important Fabric of My Gym Life Is Made of Yarn
If you struggle with faithfulness to your own health and fitness, I’d recommend you find your own Connie. Or join our happy team. We’ve got enough yarn.
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Out of All the Memories I Could Keep, This Was the One
People who knew my mother tell me I remind them of my mother — in my looks, my mannerisms, and in the way I speak. This mark was one more way I was like her.
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May I Put My Positive Spin on Christian Privilege?
I want to discuss a privilege I don’t consider political — because it is available to everyone who wants it. I want to help you want it so you can experience it too.
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Ping Pong and Purpose Softened My Heart for Jesus
A single event, one night when I was a lonely teenager, changed the trajectory of my life. You are welcome, he said, just as you are. And I accepted the invitation.
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Big Hearts, Small Kindnesses Make Me Thankful This Thanksgiving
Inspired by the moments my friend used to express love and gratefulness before he died, I wanted to thank those who have touched my life.
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Anticipating the First Day of School? Your Teacher Is, Too
And she wants an ideal year — just like you This week’s blog post will take you out of my personal blog site to Medium.com, where I usually cross-post what I write here first. I had to do it in reverse this week because I wrote this week’s blog for the Medium Writers Challenge. The […]
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Back When I First Taught Book Publishing, I Tried It Myself First
When I taught writing to a group of 20 homeschoolers, our final project was to write and illustrate our own books. Because those who teach also must do, I did my own. This is my first book — about my experience with laser surgery. It was a funny, painful experience.
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Podcast With Sara Dagen: The Power of a Good Question
In this blog post, I share a podcast episode in which FlourishWriter Founder Mindy Kiker interviewed me. It includes a question that changed my life.
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Side Effect of Salvation: I Have Comfort in His Loss
Scott was small in stature but larger than life. He had a big personality. Big problems — usually self-created. But he was and is my brother.
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Here’s Why You Can Find Hope in Any Season of Life
I share some tender scenes in my life so that you can know that God offers hope in your darkest hour. If you can’t reach out to Him, ask Him to reach out to you.
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Today Is My First Motherless Mother’s Day
So how can I feel so blessed? I prayed for rain today, Mother’s Day, because I wanted God to cry with me for my loss. Today is my first Mother’s Day without my mom. I imagine it is the first Mother’s Day without a mom for many around the world, as COVID-19 has stolen loved […]
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These 3 T-Shirts Tell the Story of Easter Past and Present
This is a tale of three T-shirts. A story in which God gives Jesus, Jesus gives His life, and we can be children of the King.
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What If You Fail to Be Who You Thought You’d Be?
This post is about friends who help us to be the person we’d like to be, told through my experiences with both failure and grace.
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The Final Shade of Death: She Doesn’t Have Alzheimer’s Anymore!
The eulogy for my mother — but, more important, why the final “shade of death” from Alzheimer’s is joyous for believers in Jesus.
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Shades of Death: When You Lose a Loved One to Alzheimer’s Disease
When you lose someone by Alzheimer’s, you lose her progressively. Both you and the one you love experience shades of death.
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A grandmother is born — again
I had missed the birth of my first grandchild, and I was determined to be as present as possible for the birth of my second. I would become a grandmother — again — on October 11 when my granddaughter, Adira Jane, was born. This time I wanted to do it right. Three years ago, as […]
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Hurricane Irma and the hours without power
I returned to work after Hurricane Irma feeling a bit worse for wear but was humbled by hearing the experiences of others before I could garner any sympathy for myself. Poor me. “Did you lose power?” I asked John, as I passed by his office on our first day back to work following the storm. […]
All Things Work Together 