Today, as the kids played in the warm sunshine out back in the yard, I remembered how much I love summer. And then I recalled all my growing up years under an Arkansas summer sun. There were popsicle days and creek exploring afternoons. There was honey suckle dripping on the tip of our tongues and strawberry nibbling.  I vividly remember the dandelion blowing, dirt digging, frog catching moments and the times when the afternoon storms would blow in and we’d dance around the yard in the rain and “take a shower” in the waterfall that flowed from the eaves. I used to begrudge my momma for having us play outside so much in the hot sun. We’d sit in the shade and make tents and forts from old sheets and me and my little brother were sure we were languishing out there in the heat. But, [...]

I’ve got this one kid in particular who just happens to be a real house-wrecker. (Well, they’re all house wreckers but this one…he’s just the worst.) He doesn’t mean to be, I don’t think. It’s just they all seem to go through this exploratory stage right about the time they’re two whole feet tall, and they really do need to examine every single content in the Tupperware drawer. And this kid, he gets a strange compulsion to pull every article of clothing out of the chest of drawers, say oh, five times a day to see if that one pair of underwear will fit around his scrawny little head. I've been invited to Kimberly Wagner's blog today. She's the author of Fierce Women: The Power of a Soft Warrior. Keep reading over here? And enter to win a free copy of  my book, Finding God at [...]

Dear friend, I don't know where today finds you. Maybe you woke up this morning and found out your spouse hasn't exactly been faithful to you. Or maybe you haven't been feeling well, and you've got a check-up soon and you're afraid it's cancer. Or maybe your life is a little more "normal" and you just woke up to a wrecky house and loud kids and a long to-do list and not very much energy. Probably, if you're like me, you've got some struggles of some sort. There are things that bug you and things that nag at your heart and there are unanswered questions and hard relationships and fluctuating emotions. Probably, if you're like me, you keep meaning to get all the pine needles in the yard raked up, from last year, but who has time to rake pine needles? And you keep wanting to be a[...]

Sometimes you might wake up to a bad day. Well, it might be a good day outside. There might be light everywhere and flowers bloomin' and birds singin', but there on your insides, everything feels overwhelming. And it might not be your fault entirely. It might have even started the night before when things didn't go as you had hoped or planned. And so you went to bed not quite at peace with God and the world and you woke up with some internal struggles right from the get-go. Yep, the sunlight could be streaming in that window and you might feel like a train wreck before the cereal is even poured. The world does its own thing, and you can't change what's going on around you, but there are some things that you can do to help your insides. To get your day back on track. For on[...]

Yesterday,  I cleaned out a bunch of crud out of my cedar chest. Because it was high time, and I had this whole stack of journals that I'd been keeping that was just taking up space. I'd been keeping them because they were full of prayers and thoughts and Scripture verses (mostly Scripture verses, actually, because I was trying to get the Word to sink right into me) and I felt bad just throwing the past away like that. So, I thought a little bit about it and took some time to read through my old stuff. As I was flipping through those pages, I started to feel that same confused feeling I used to have all the time, and that same depression that I used to struggle with and I was mad at some of the stuff I'd been through and floored by the thoughts I used to think. Now, not everything w[...]

  The last few days have been full here. Brent and I went to Chicago to do some interviews for the book. It was good. You know, Brent was truly amazing. Even though he was more "behind the scenes" he did so much to help us. We both very much felt like we were a team. He asked me on the way back to the car if it was fun. I think I told him that water-slides were fun. The interviews were good and deeply fulfilling and hard and emotionally taxing but I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity to reach people who we could otherwise, never have reached. (Thank you, Moody Publishers!) And I'm thankful to the Lord for helping me to be my complete self. (Even though sometimes my self feels like a dork.) : ) But, today it's back to real life. Back to my living room with the cl[...]

Some days start out pretty hard. Well, not hard compared to the friend who is battling cancer, or the neighbor who just lost their job. And not hard compared to the folks who don’t have enough to eat or the ones on the other side of the world who are being kidnapped and murdered by that terrorist group. Not that kind of hard. But hard to you, because there are just things that are difficult in the day to day where you are actually living. You know, with the kids who keep fighting and that one room you had resolved you would for sure finally clean today but for the life of you, you can’t seem to make any progress…on anything. Because soon as you get to work, someone gets whacked with a toy truck and another gets into the treats in the pantry and someone just made a big ol[...]

Someone asked me recently how I became interested in photography. First of all, I want to just say that I am not a photographer. True photographers have studied apertures and light and other words that I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I say them. And real photographers are willing to make serious investments in their craft. For example, they usually have nice cameras and some pretty amazing lenses. When I was about thirteen, I bought my first camera. I think it was like $30. Still, I felt important, you know, because this was back before everybody had a cell phone or an ipad or even a lap-top. So, to have a little device that worked on batteries and had its own film cartridge and could capture images of life felt pretty significant. So, I’d walk around the y[...]

Isn’t it strange how you can be going along in life, just plugging away at all your regular things you do, like sweeping cheerios and dried peanut butter toast up off the floor, and loving your kids and trying to stay connected to your spouse, all the while this anxious stuff is quietly piling up there inside your chest? At first you're blissfully unaware. Because you’re busy and so you think you’re doing just fine. Meanwhile, you skim headlines on the news and your friend writes to tell you her world is falling apart, and a few friends ask you to do them a favor, and the kids keep making messes and you can’t find that one bill, and you’re laying there in bed at night, tired as can be, but for the life of you, you just can’t fall asleep. And this happens more frequently until one[...]