Truth, Love And Books

My mom is an incredible mother and grandma. But I'm about to tell you a story that might initially lend you to think otherwise... Three weeks before I left home for college, my family of 7 went white water rafting. In our raft there were 9 people and 1 guide.  My siblings, parents, and I, plus a father-son duo. Before the somewhat perilous trip, the guide repeatedly informed us novice rafters of the importance of staying in the raft, even and especially when others may be thrown out.  My mom took the truth to heart.  Her and I, well... we tell this story quite differently.  From my vantage point, the one kid in the raft that wasn't her kid was nearly hurled into the swirling waters and all  the petrified young dude had to hold onto was someone's upper thighs. These thighs  - you guessed it- belonged to my mother. Well, Mom was not going in that water, she all but shook the 16 year old off her.  The kid was fine. But my stomach hurt. Tremendously. Fr...

 

Growing up as a home school kid in the 90's, "regular" school kids often voiced either their jealousy or genuine curiosity. "Do you get to sleep in ? What about snow days? Do you spend the day in your pajamas?  Your mom is your teacher?!  Now that I am a home school mom the opinions and questions are a bit different. " Oh I could never do that!" and " W hen are you going to send your kids to real school ?"  And my favorite: " How do you make sure your kids don't turn out weird ?"  We'll talk weird in a moment, but for now allow me to address the first statement. 1) When a fellow mom mentions that she could never home educate... Pardon my snarkiness, (all these thoughts truly are coming from a place of love) but yeah, I  categorically disagree. I've heard too many stories and seen too much evidence. I feel the need to even post on this because I believe there are a lot of moms out there that may want to give it a try but are...

If I could do parenting over, I would live more simply.  I would slow down and not feel the need to do so much, buy so much and be so much. Yes, I would do less because less is truly more. Except for when it comes to the library. Can I get an amen? Greed is not a thing when it comes to books on loan, right? Greedy about reading is a thing I want my family to be about. I love the above snapshot of my twins as seven year olds. Apparently, they couldn't wait to get to the car to crack open their library books and just sat down right in the elevator.  This year's favorites were a lot of theology books and mid-grade novels. Here are a few... The author was a pastor and an actual sheep-caring shepherd. I found captivating the parallels that he pulls from Psalm 23. An easy read but with a lot of depth. I felt like each chapter described varying stages of my Christian walk. Definitively explains why Christianity hinges on the trinity. The one true living God in three distinct persons ...

 I'll never forget when I got word of the Sandy Hook tragedy. At the time, I was a nanny and almost a year into struggling with fertility. Less than a week before, my husband and I had endured a chemical pregnancy. The pain of losing a child - even one you never held - is immeasurable.  But losing a child in such a violent manner as a school shooting? That made me question if I even wanted to keep trying to have and hold a baby of my own. Who wants to raise a baby in that kind of world? Parents should not bury their kids.  But parents do. This world is immensely broken. People are hurting deeply.  And the old adage surely rings true: hurt people hurt people. The evil and suffering of humanity is one of the biggest objections to the Bible and Historic Christianity. I believe, it is a completely fair question to ask...If God is good and all powerful, why doesn't he put an end to all this evil? Multitudes of books (by people way smarter than me) have been written on thi...