Next week, I will send my kids back to school. I will have a second grader, a kindergartener, and a preschooler. I'm not sure how that happened (Weren't they just little babies last week?!), and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it -- about going back to school in general. But if I'm really honest, my biggest emotion is fear. I fear that ...
My husband, Brian, and I finally made the decision to move our family into a new home -- a new home we had prayed about, saved for, and contemplated for years. It was a beautiful, freshly remodeled home with everything brand new throughout the house. God's confirmation in opening doors seemed to be clear and evident with everything falling into ...
God stands in the divine assembly; he pronounces judgment among the gods: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah Provide justice for the needy and the fatherless; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and needy; save them from the power of the wicked.” They do not know or ...
I’ve been biting my fingernails a lot. I pick and play with my cuticles when I’m anxious. I’ve been nervous about a lot of things recently -- more things than I care to admit. I’m nervous about my kids drowning, the number in our bank account, the responsibilities I’ve committed to. I’m embarrassed because I haven’t taught my kids how to do ...
Years ago, I can remember my friend Tat telling me her favorite scene in the movie Tangled was the part when all of the lanterns float into the sky. "It's beautiful, Aliza," she said, "all of that light." So one day, Tat, our friend Brianna, and I took our own lanterns, lighting them with fire, and watching them rise high, the night sky ...
Recently, we cleaned out the garage and moved boxes up to the attic. I was tasked with sorting through them. I got sidetracked with a box of photo albums from the old days when we actually got pictures developed instead of just scrolling through Instagram. I thumbed through yellowed photos pasted into faux leather albums, remembering. I’m often ...
She stood next to me, towering over me. My legs swung back and forth from the playground bench, trying to stay in rhythm with the nearby slap-slap sound of a jump rope smacking the blacktop, again and again. She told us she was going to be a model. I believed she would be and easily could be. The rest of the girls with us agreed. She was ...
My most treasured college graduation gift is a beautifully restored antique card catalog that I received from my parents. They hid it under flowered bedsheets in our garage until graduation day when they led me by hand to the dark corner of the garage and pulled the sheet from the top with the same fanfare as a magician yanking a tablecloth from ...
I used to struggle with guilt -- guilt for sinful behavior, things I thought I could have done better, but most of all, guilt for experiencing blessings from God that I didn’t see others enjoying. I felt guilty for answered prayers and for better circumstances than my friends. I knew that “there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ ...
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.” Genesis 50:20 (NLT) My daughter’s fourteenth birthday is coming up in one month. Also in one month, one day before her birthday, the book I wrote about learning how to love and forgive my alcoholic mother ...
