My Blessing of Struggles
I’m so excited to share with you something from my daughter Charity. As a result of a mass on her brain stem when she was twenty-six, Charity lives with incomplete-quadriplegia. She wrote...
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General Scripture
71 articles connected to this biblical reference.
Call Me Sis Again
“Hey Sis,” she said to get my attention in the store. She was more than double my age with white hair. She looked like my grandma. “Mom,” I hissed, “don’t call me Sis,” I always wanted a...
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Our Fancy Aluminum Tree
I grew up with a silver aluminum tree. There will be those who respond to that fact with pity. There will be others for whom an indescribable nostalgia sweeps through from head to toe. Ou...
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What’s in Your Suitcase? - Three Treasures to Pack and Three Attitudes to Leave Behind
Do you go on vacation with more than just what’s in your suitcase? This week you’ll find me at https://www.jeanniewaters.com/blog/. Today it’s my privilege to be Jeannie’s guest blogger....
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What’s Wrong With Grandpa?
When I think of my grandchildren, there is a sweet glow in my mind of happy holding-on-the-lap book reading, coloring pictures together or baking cookies. Quiet blissfulness. Togetherness...
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Who Will Be The Greatest
My six-year-old and three-year-old grandsons have never even seen Star Wars, but the way they go at it, you’d never know. They grunt and shout in victory and defeat. It is a run-for-your-...
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Do You Know Gawd?
“Do you know Gawd?” Arched back, hands on hips, lips puckered, the question comes from knee high, completely out of the blue. I look down at his upturned face. A light saber pulsates in h...
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We Were So Alike Until We Got Married
(This post may have a familiar ring to it. You may have read it on the first go around Feb. 14, 2017, but it’s especially appropriate for a revisit before Valentine’s Day sneaks up on you...
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Covid Fear is Also Affecting Our Children
Featured recently at Just18Summers.com "It was a Facetime call. I held it up and saw some of the cutest little faces looking at me. “Grandma!” My five-year-old grandson and his three-year...
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A Time For Renewal
Another year has passed. No wait a minute, I hear you say, not just any year. 2020 is behind us. But like a nightmare that drags its headache into the day, we feel its shadow as 2021 begi...
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I Never Thought of It Like That
It was the usual mayhem of opened plastic totes, lids tossed aside and Christmas decor spilling onto the floor. A just decorated tree and mantel already changed the entire look of the roo...
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But Why??
“Why?” my grandson asks. A little hand pats my leg, soft but insistent. Round blue eyes search mine as if the connection somehow might supply what he needs to know. Maybe those annoying r...
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My Break For The Day
Somewhere between the I-can’t-do-everything-around-here and the it’s-easier-to-do-it-myself syndrome I hear the whisper, “Don’t forget Me.” But the day is full and fragmented. A tiny face...
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I'm Proud of You Son
“You’re never too old to want your dad to be proud of you,” my husband stated the other night as we both collapsed into bed, tired from a day of hard work. Those poignant words took me im...
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Cutting Your Husband’s Food and Other Friendly Tasks
So, I cut his roast chicken. Into little square edibles. When I looked up, he wore a puzzled expression, a little worried but seriously amused. I drew my eyes back down to where mangled b...
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Whatever Makes Them Happy Isn't the Answer
“The things I do for my kids,” I thought with a half-eaten Big Mac in one gloved hand and piece of wilted lettuce in the other. “But this tops them all.” I stood on a stool leaning into a...
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Walk With The Wise
“She’s my friend,” my daughter said with a nod. “She doesn’t cheat.” My head shot up. “And some of your friends do?” I asked, thinking at least my six-year-old was on the right side of th...
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When It's Just Easier To Do It Myself!
“It’s easier to just do it myself,” I mutter. A dishtowel hangs from my hand like a tail swaying against my hip. Chores, those supposedly helpful contributions are about to be my undoing....
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Unsettled Times
I don’t know about you, momma, daddy, grandmama, and granddad, but the last few weeks have fogged my brain and tattered my thinking. If today could be superimposed like tracing paper over...
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Looking Beyond
After a string of long days, it had culminated into the perfect storm. My two-year-old, four-year-old, and seven-year-old each had the issues of a titanic about to sink. All at the same t...
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Clean Slates of Possibilities or Endless Piles of Heaviness
Sheets of frozen white driven by cutting wind kept my snow-loving son indoors. By late afternoon, the worst moved past. Glittering flecks blew from drift to drift, tiny razor shards of sn...
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If You Aim at Nothing are You Really Bound to Hit It?
In the month of January, when people sit down with year planners and good intentions, I realize, I’m not a great goal setter. I don’t like to see on black and white what I’ve kept locked...
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Hidden Things
A rubber duck accompanied my walk around the room. I laid it in plain sight on a shelf of the bookcase. Its classic yellow face and orange bill pointed to the door where my daughter would...
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Cutting Your Husband’s Food and Other Friendly Tasks
So, I cut his roast chicken. Into little square edibles. When I looked up, he wore a puzzled expression, a little worried but seriously amused. I drew my eyes back down to where mangled b...
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Without Apologies
I stood before my mini-version. Blonde hair curled at the shoulders, bright blue eyes sparkled, and a pleased smile lighted her face. Behind her on the wall splashed brilliant colors in w...
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Leavening the Whole Lump
Flour frosted the kitchen like snow. A flour bin, a half-empty bottle of vegetable oil, and baking pans fought for territory on my counter. Little fingers thick with dough punched and kne...
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Till Kids Do Us Part
Okay, so it’s possible I don’t like her child. That friend who’s been a friend for as long as I can remember, the one who dried my tears after break ups and sad movies, the friend who kne...
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Delight and Desire
Fire darted from blue eyes. “I don’t want to go.” White ruffles flounced around her squirming legs as we clicked the strap into her car seat. She crossed her arms, defiant. A frown like a...
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The Art of Talking Back
One of my daughters, might have had the advantage of most lawyers at age two. By the time she turned ten, she could befuddle my brain to the place where not only did I forget the point of...
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There is Always Hope
The hospital room where my twenty-six-year-old daughter lay against snowy sheets grew quiet as a tomb. Her husband sat next to her. He leaned his back against the wall, holding her hand,...
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Who is that Baby in the Manger?
Every year, of my childhood, the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, Christmas pageant practice began. The characters were the same every year, the players different... ...In all the sweet...
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Can my prayer reach his suffering?
He sat alone at the table, palms pressed together like hands praying, shoulders hunched, and chin resting on the tips of his fingers. He stared into space a million galaxies away. Togethe...
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Banana Stickers and Big Questions
Charity bounced into the kitchen. Two braids swung behind her. Her black Italian school uniform covered mismatched pants and shirt. The hidden kaleidoscope of colors was her way of nose-t...
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A Lesson in Mommy-Wisdom That Broke Through My Insecurities
It was a sincere question, “What are some weaknesses you see in my parenting?” I thought I really wanted to know. My husband and I were both twenty-three with a still-young marriage and a...
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Hold My Hand
“Mommy?” Charity whispered into the dark still night. “Hold my hand.” I felt the soft skin of her little hand slide smoothly into mine. It fit perfectly, like it was meant to be there. Th...
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Each Day Is An Offering
You rode the rapids from the protection of my womb into the hands of a stranger. With that final push, our hello began but giving up started. Because each day is an offering. We separated...
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My Boy Has Grown Into A Man I No Longer Recognize
I am engrossed in soapy dishes at the sink, my back is turned from the rest of the quiet house when I think I hear something, someone talking. Did I leave the TV on upstairs I wonder? I p...
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God Doesn't Mind Your Issues
"She has, you know…issues.” I hate having “issues.” The dreaded connotation underlying the word implies different, problematic, maybe even burdensome. I hate burdensome. Yet the reality i...
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"That’s us someday,” I told him
He walked the church aisle past where I sat. A little girl, about two-years-old straddled on his hip, her shoe dangled against his leg. His left arm circled her securely. Another little g...
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“Mom, how will I know he’s the one?” – 5 Ways to Prepare Them for Marriage
The question will come. It did for us as she sat on my lap, her baby-soft hand moved my chin to look at her face. Big blue eyes searched mine, “Mom, how did you know Dad was the one?” The...
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Superpowers, Heroes and Wrinkles
My grandson screeches around the room, his dark blue cape flies like a flag behind him. “Quick,” he says in a flutter of little feet and hands, “on the couch.” Because of course everyone...
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I don't want them to have a mother like me
“I don’t want them to have a mother like me,” my daughter said. I sat in a heap, shoulders bent, my right side propped against the hospital bed. The children were always on her mind when...
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That's What Moms Do
I lay on the couch, one eye open and one shut. An ice cube wrapped inside a damp washcloth balanced on my eyebrow. “I weally sorry, Momma,” he said. His face was level with mine, his eye...
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Mom, I'm such a sinner
The door opened with a bang against my front hall. “Mom!” Something was wrong. My heart revved like a racecar. I wiped wet hands against my apron and hurried to meet my daughter, home fro...
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Have You Opened the Door?
“On Wednesday morning, the first rays of sun were peeking around the clouds,” my daughter Charity wrote. “I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Strange dizziness clouded my mind. I ha...
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When Mom called me "Sis"
“Hey Sis,” she said to get my attention in the store. She was more than double my age with white hair. She looked like my grandma. “Mom,” I hissed, “don’t call me Sis,” I always wanted a...
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Momma, Is Jesus Here?
“Momma,” he called from the dark bedroom. “Is Jesus here?” “Yes, Justin.” “Ok, don’t worry Mom, we just can’t see Him,” he shouted from his bed. I plopped down on the sofa, letting Justin...
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Building A Family Legacy One Bedtime Story At A Time
I was transported. Seriously. When our kids were small we always read a Bible story before they went to sleep. Sometimes we read different books first, but the last story they could alway...
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Guest Blog at 936 Pennies: Dear Weary Mama, Look Beyond
“How did you do it?” my daughter asks with an exasperated sigh, the kind that expires like a thin whisper from her soul. She is weary, and the noise level is high. She plops down next to...
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That One Perfect Moment Will Rescue Us Today
The sun streams through trees, dappling its light across the deck. Its brightness bathes my upturned face in warmth. I sigh, and the sound is a whisper of praise. It is a perfect moment,...
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Will You Still Know Me
“The doctor will just take this itty-bitty part,” my finger taps my daughter’s birthmark. I wear an intentional mask of cheerful confidence. “It won’t take long and it will be all over,”...
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With 936 Weeks To Raise Our Kids, Maybe Parenting Isn’t About The Big Things
We were three weeks into a month-long road trip with our three young boys. And although we are no strangers to roadtripping with young children, I was feeling rather tired, overwhelmed, a...
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Stepping Forward With God
I’ve never been one to jump with two feet into a new year. I don’t even take giant steps boldly into the future. Let me tip toe into it with baby steps, slightly fearful and hopeful not t...
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The No. 1 Way to Resolve Your Insecurities
Sometimes I’m Leah and sometimes I’m Rachel. Sometimes I soar confidently, secure in my position and exhilarated by life. Sometimes I sink in a mire of insecurity and doubt. Sometimes I f...
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1 Day to Christmas: JESUS
The richness of Handel's Messiah rolled over me in crescendoes. It filled my house with its heavenly music. Christmas isn’t Christmas without it. “Mom, we lost baby Jesus again!” my frust...
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The Truth About Grief
“Teach me,” my words stumbled out. “Teach me how to lose my daughter.” Surely this godly woman who’d lived through the horrific murder of her son could tell me how to keep from drowning i...
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Silvery Words
My children had some hefty arguments when they were young. Words became darts. “She said,” “He said” often spiraled into something I had to step into. I needed to... Read the full devotio...
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Can you find joy in what you don’t enjoy?
Tired and worn after a difficult meeting, I’m eager to be home. The sight that greets me when I open the door is a dirty pan and a dish with lunch scraps. “At least he could have.... Read...
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What's Hiding
I walked around the room with a rubber duck in my hand. I laid it in plain sight on a shelf of the book case. It’s classic yellow face and orange bill pointed to the door where my daughte...
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Are You a Good Lover?
I’m not a good lover. Let me pause before you think I just handed you more information than you care to receive, like a bad Facebook post. Here is what I mean: I don’t know how to love li...
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MY SON WAS THE BABY OF THE FAMILY AND HAD FOUR MOTHERS
After three daughters, it was only natural that our youngest son should have four mothers. I just wasn’t expecting how tight those sibling-mommy bonds could be. When one of them forgot to...
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Soak It Up
Sometimes being a mommy was like the ocean that disappeared into sand. Vast and unmeasurable, mommy-hood was never completely accomplished or satiated. Its demands drained, yet its beauty...
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Mother Bear-ness
The sun was shining. Blue sky filled the kitchen window. My eight-year-old daughter played in front of our house with friends. I could hear voices, a mixture of laughter and children’s bo...
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Generations: God's Legacy
The car doors slam, and we slide into opposite sides. We look at one another, then sit silently and think over the last hour. The question comes again: “Will we be like that?” As our car...
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Meltdown Dread
I plunked her diaper-padded bottom into the shopping cart and directed two little legs into the slots. The mission began. I had one hour, one child with me, two others at home, and a whol...
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In the In-Between
In the In-Between I sat on the cold window ledge and leaned my forehead against the glass, looking out at the hospital garden. Brown earth, dried and brittle, had replaced the green of mo...
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The Sixth Stocking
Today is my son’s birthday. I wrote the following story over 20 years ago after he was born. It may be a little sappy, but is it a taste of the blessing he has been to us ever since the f...
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Growing Golden Gracefully
Have you ever wondered if someday you would be like the elderly person in front of you at the cash register? I wrote an article that appeared in an issue of Just Between Us about living a...
Read ArticleThe Blog Thing
To be honest, I’m going into the whole blog thing with a bit of kicking and screaming. Blogs come and go like the national debt ticker. I have technological deficits within my brain that...
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He Knows
Recently I talked to a friend armed with a list of bitter accusations. She began what soon became a blame saga with the words, “You’ll never know…” Since that conversation those words hav...
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