It's crazy how life is. Or, let’s be honest…how I am. It was one of the happiest times of my life as we welcomed our healthy newborn baby boy. There was so much to celebrate, yet something was missing… Oh, how precious were the days of building our family! Friends helped friends as they expanded their families – anticipating babies to be born, adjusting to new little ones. Sweet hugs and kisses, sleepless nights, temper tantrums, the whole package! Those times were exhausting but priceless! Bonding with friends was easy – for my husband and myself, as we had so much in common with those around us. Friends laughed and cried together, shared stories of exhaustion and exhilaration together. Those were the days that lifetime friends were made. By the time our second son was born, Continue Reading
When Choosing Authentic Means Choosing Brave – Made for Brave Sisterhood
Her eyes widened as she moved her chair closer to the table. The crowded coffee shop had not deterred her from being open and honest. Now, it was my turn. This young girl in her twenties tried to conceal her surprised expression. “I thought you wouldn’t understand, Karen. I imagined your childhood and life near perfect.” Oh, how wrong her sentiments. Truth is, we held much in common. We both experienced a troubling upbringing, one affecting our life as adults. When a parent abandons a child physically or emotionally, they leave behind a broken life and heart. As I opened up to my coffee-shop friend, pain from my past spilled out as tears. In the most vulnerable way, I conveyed how I spent part of my childhood with one parent absent and the other present, but just in the Continue Reading
We Are Made to Brave Imperfect Motherhood
Before experiencing motherhood for myself, I had this expectation that I was going to be a better mother than my mother ever was. That is if I was ever going to be a mother at all. To be clear, I had a healthy childhood and my mother did a masterful job at caring for all of her children but as far as I could see motherhood was a tiring, messy task, with little to no reward. These thoughts were so deeply ingrained, were it up to me, I would have lived my life to ensure that children were not on my radar. Then I met my husband and began to see the possibilities of love. We were married when I was 22, and I had my first child at 23 which was manageable at first. Then our family of three became a family of four...then five. Somehow I went from not wanting kids at all to parenting Continue Reading
Made for Brave Sisterhood
"When I called to you, you answered me; you made me strong and brave." Psalm 138:3 No life is untouched by the difficult, the unpleasant or the painful, and every living breath demands the fullness of brave be lived out in becoming who we were created to be. Our stories bring hope and healing in the telling because most of us don't consider ourselves brave. The battles for courage arrive with such force that fear often trumps brave...over and over again. As the years drift by, we find ourselves trudging through the same muck, bound by its chains and unable to experience true freedom. But it was never meant to be this way. When I began developing this series, I knew God was calling me to step into a place of brave I've never traveled fully before. Oh, believe me, I've tried, but Continue Reading