life. faithful.

Memorial Day is Monday, and I've spent all week trying to figure out what to write. I've started and deleted this post multiple times now, a couple of times trying to just write and let the words come on their own. That usually works for me--writing has always been cathartic and I've never really had to force it (with the exception of one chapter I skipped over in my story , but that's a bit different). I start writing and the words seem to flow on their own, usually leading me somewhere I didn't even realize I was trying to reach. For some reason, though, I just haven't been able to do that this time. I guess I'm struggling with just how to put my feelings about Memorial Day into words. That never used to be a problem. Like most people, this holiday used to simply be the start of summer. It was the first long weekend that everyone could spend at the lake, despite the still somewhat chilly water. That was in Arkansas, mind you--the water up here would b...

As a parent, I know I'm not alone in wanting the best for my children. And as a bit of a control freak, I wish I could plan everything out for them and lay life out before them as a road map with a neatly detailed route. As my own parents can tell you, though, you can't lay life out nice and neat for your kids. No matter your plans for your  kids, life happens and things have a tendency to veer off track. We can plan all we want to, but really all our planning amounts to very little. So what can we do for our kids? " Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it ." (Proverbs 22:6) I have. like so many other parents out there, huge dreams for my kids. If you ask me, nothing is out of reach for them and no dream is too incredible. I grew up being told I could do anything I put my mind to, no matter how crazy it may seem to others, and I have that same belief for my kids. They are already amazing, even at 6 and almost 4. No ...

We had a dedication service Sunday at church, and one of the things the parents of the babies being dedicated that Mother's Day morning were asked to do was pick out a verse for their kids. That made me think about the verses I would have picked for my kids. Honestly, if I had been asked to choose verses for them when they were tiny I don't know what I would have come up with. Babies are amazing miracles, but you don't really know them until they get a little older and start developing all the quirks that make somebody unique. Now, though, with my babies 6 and almost 4, I'm starting to get a good idea of the little people they are. And now I think I have a better grasp on the verses I would choose for each of them. First there's Raiden. My sweet, bossy, artsy, moody, insightful, cuddly, girly, sensitive, loving, growing up too fast little girl. She loves music and is constantly making up songs. Because of her, the kids go to sleep with their CD player on e...

I want to tell you a story... It seems Nathan and I have a thing for unexpected adventures, and I was reminded of one that I thought you might enjoy. When Raiden was born, Nathan was still in the Coast Guard and we were living in Astoria, Oregon (if you've never been there, you should visit. I would love to go back some day!). We had gone back to Arkansas so she would be born there, though, so when she was about 2 or 3 weeks old we headed back across country in the Santa Fe--two brand new parents who had no idea what they were doing, one tiny baby girl who didn't know to be scared, and two giant dogs, one of whom was not cut out for travel. My mom thinks you can never be too prepared, so before we headed out she made sure we had about a million baby blankets in the car with us. She wanted to send a candle because she had seen a show that talked about a family getting stuck in their car in a blizzard and apparently a single candle is enough to keep you warm in that situ...

Psalm 124 "If the LORD had not been on our side-- let Israel say-- if the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us alive; the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away. Praise be to the LORD, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth." When things go wrong, it's easy to look around and ask, "Where is God?" I know that I've had lots of those moments in my life, times when everything was going wrong (or at least, not according to my plans) and I felt abandoned. In the middle of the bad stuff, it's hard to get a different perspective--kind of like only seeing the waves when you're in the middle of ...

"You look just like your mom!" I've heard this my whole life--from family, friends, and strangers--and I'll admit that when I was a teenager it grated on me every time I heard it. Mom and I butted heads a lot. Growing up it seemed we never saw eye to eye on anything; we were just too different, despite looking alike. Moma has always said that even though I look like her, I think like Pop and am turned like Aunt Brenda (of course, both of those are compliments, right?). We were so different in so many ways, but alike in a few that made our disagreements into battles quite often. We were both emotional and neither o us knew how to let things go, which led to more blowouts than I can count. We would argue, I would stomp to my room and slam the door, she would follow me and swing it open again. As I've gotten older, while the similarities in our looks have grown more pronounced, our differences have as well. My mom has a decorator's eye; my pictures are sti...

Sometimes I look around and wonder, "What in the world am I doing here? Surely this isn't the right place for me." Am I the only one? Didn't think so (although I'll admit that sometimes the thought that I am the only one who feels that way creeps into my mind and starts a pity party). I stare at physics problems or I look at the big city we've found ourselves in or think about how we've been married for 9 years now and have 2 kids and still haven't gotten a place that's ours and I think maybe we've gotten a bit lost somehow. But then, God uses half of one verse tucked in the middle of Paul's speech to a bunch of Greek philosophers 2 thousand years ago to tell me this:    "...and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." (Acts 17:26b) This "God who made the world and everything in it" (vs. 24) cares enough about each one of us to have hand-picked this exact moment an...