Holding Sand
I sometimes wake in the early morning & listen to the soft breathing of my children & I think to myself, this is one thing I will never regret & I carry that quiet with me all day long. “No Regret” at Storypeople.com So, it’s the last week of summer. For me, this last week of summer marks the end of an era: my Rainbow baby is going to kindergarten. I know that every mama out there who walks her baby into kindergarten this fall will tearfully nod their heads: it went too fast, and it took so long . . . I want to jump for joy that he…
Saint Wannabe
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Romans 7:19-20 Since I was a little girl, I aspired to holiness like my brother aspired to be a professional football player. Religion seemed so simple: follow the rules, life goes great, you go to heaven. And, I was great at following the rules! It just came naturally to me, kind of like a talent. But there are by-products to a character fastened to rigidity: a prideful heart filled with…
The Other Shoe
For Oma Janie and her Pat, whom she and many will miss dearly. It always drops, ya know: that darn other shoe. Just the other night, Jack and I stayed up way too late talking about how hard it is to not live in fear when so many hard things have happened. It’s easy to believe that life is dominated by the drop of that second shoe. It’s easy to believe that happiness is not attainable, peace cannot reside permanently in our hearts. It’s hard to live happily, even when everything is happy. We found a scripture that night that we wrote on our black board at the bottom of…
The Great Net Drop
At once they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:20 We all want to act like we’re not. We rouge and powder ego, cover seeping wounds with designer labels, stuff our homes full of temporality. We watch our sparkly watches tick, tick time, forgetting life paces us in our stand still. Every moment, every pulse, meant to frolic and savor and wring out, pours from our pitcher of carelessness. Our bodies wither as we shake hands, skin wrinkles paper thin, organs slow blink by blink. No, this isn’t what you say in a Friday “give me something to go on, Taylor” blog. But it is the truth: this life,…
You’re a Good Mama. Really.
The success of love is in the loving – it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done. Mother Teresa I always smirk inside when someone tells me to take care of myself. I know I need to; I know they’re right. And yet, I find the line between taking care of me and taking care of my children to be incredibly fuzzy. Their well being is my well being; their pain is brought double upon my…
