Happy Daylight Saving Time, dear reader! This week ushers in more sunshine hours, Vitamin D, and fresh air. I’m thankful for this. My previous week included a basketball-playing teenager requiring stitches to his eyelid and a toddler with a stomach virus that caused her to projectile vomit like a sorority sister after a prolonged keg stand. A bright spot for me last week was sharing about Jesus with two of my children. They always have great observations about the bible that I don’t see. I read to them from Luke, the passage where Mary and Joseph travel with twelve-year-old Jesus to the Passover Feast. For context, God sent the Ten…

I am fortunate to live near the ocean. I can drive from my home to the frigid New Hampshire coastline in under half an hour. Winter visits to the beach often surpass their summertime counterparts for my peace of mind. With far fewer people on the beach, it’s easier to engage my senses. The susurration of the surf gently peels away my stress. I play games of chicken with incoming waves as I walk across the fine gray sand. I nudge tightly woven bundles of rockweed and horsetail, common to the rocky shore. I peek underneath to see if there might be any intertidal creatures seeking shelter, or maybe a…

Merry Christmas, dear reader! I hope you have had a wonderful day, surrounded by love. I have a soccer-team-sized family, so my Christmas preparations began months ago. Ideas were tossed around, and once I had settled on what I thought were the right gifts for each person, the treasure hunt began. When considering a gift for someone, context matters. Why do they want this gift? What goal or persona or fantasy does it represent to them? I’ll give you a personal example. I really enjoyed reading a book. “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Summary – pen pals Juliet and Dawsey…

Hello, dear reader. I have a confession, and it’s fifty-three years in the making. I hate Thanksgiving. I always have. Please don’t interpret that to mean I hate being grateful. I frequently reflect upon what I am grateful for. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) Here’s how my epiphany came about. Recently, a friend who is working out a custody agreement with their ex-partner reached out to me with questions. My answers didn’t seem to satisfy this person, and they said, “I knew you wouldn’t understand.” Comedian Dane Cook calls remarks like these a form of…

My oldest son has an uncanny ability to guess what any wrapped gift is based on shape, size, and sometimes smell. It is really hard to surprise him, and what makes it more complicated is that receiving gifts is his love language. So I am always struggling to both surprise and please him. One Christmas, I made the epic mistake of gifting him a chemistry set, which he despised. He tried hard to reassure me it wasn’t 100% awful (his face said otherwise) WORST. GIFT. EVER. He told me he loved me and gave me a sincere thank you. I went on to have a few more sons (ok, five,…

A friend loves at all times,And a brother is born for adversity.  Proverbs 17:17 A recent family tragedy has brought my siblings closer. We are circling the wagons around the broken-hearted one, trying to keep away any more hurt. Our attempts to protect our sibling are fierce and flawed, wholly inadequate but well-intentioned. Thinking about how much I love my siblings brought to mind two uniquely different sibling stories. The first, a pair of siblings who failed to appreciate one another, their rivalry splitting an entire town apart. The other, a pair who remained loyal through the worst adversity, inspiring heroic action. The first story takes place before World War…

In 1983, a Connecticut engineer named Frank Hursey experimented on a mouse, changing medicine forever. He cut the mouse open and applied a mineral called zeolite onto the wound. The wound stopped bleeding within seconds, and Hursey released the mouse. Zeolite takes water out of wounds and forces platelets and clotting factors together. Frank Hursey created what is now known as QuikClot, a topical hemostat agent. The U.S. Army was a popular customer and for good reason. According to Charles Barber, author of In The Blood, QuikClot had a huge impact on one soldier in particular. Barber writes, “In November 2005, Lieutenant Ryan Kules, of the Army’s First Armored Division,…

Last month, my husband called me from work and relayed news that shook me to my core. A dizzying succession of words that I rapidly tried to process. “I’ve lost feeling in my arm, having trouble breathing, the ambulance is coming.” That night, it was confirmed my husband had had a stroke. I called those closest to us and asked for prayers. The stroke recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Within hours, full speech and motor function seemed to return. We tentatively hoped life might go back to ‘normal.’ That was not God’s will. Further tests brought to light a dangerous heart arrhythmia called atrial fibrillation that had caused the…

When my daughter was eleven, she asked me for a kitten. We already had a cat, a mild-mannered shelter rescue named Zoey, an American Bombay with polydactyl paws. I didn’t feel we needed another cat, but my daughter persisted. My husband and I explained that if she truly wanted a kitten from the animal shelter, she would have to save her weekly allowance to prove to me that this goal was genuine. The adoption fee was $160. We gave her $10 a week, and when she had made it halfway to her goal, her grandmother stepped in and asked if she could meet her halfway to the other half. They…