Sometimes I get discouraged. Being a mother with no other current employment seems like not enough; less than. I am surrounded by other mothers who appear to be accomplishing abundantly more. It’s in my face to gather time to take …
Waterlogged Soul Care
Do you remember being little and playing too long in the bathtub to the point where your skin would start to wrinkle? My mama would always remind me that once the skin got ‘pruney’ it was time to get outta …
It’s Too Dangerous to Love Myself
My story is not unlike those of countless other postpartum moms: pregnancy changed my body in ways I didn’t expect, and even once I lost most of the “baby weight,” I struggled to accept that my body had rearranged itself. …
The Path of Most Beauty
For many years, I believed God’s calling on my life had to be something I didn’t want to do. I’d heard story after story of people who believed they had been called not just outside their comfort zones but outside …
Drawing Hearts
I sat in a dark room and rocked our 6-month-old back to sleep for what seemed like the 1,000th time. “Dang it,” I muttered under my breath. London was going through a sleep regression. I felt a familiar tidal wave …
Beauty in Simplicity
Another Monday arrives, I feel the weight of yet another week coming: how will I keep the children entertained this week, will my activities measure up and am I doing enough as a mom? Will I be seen in the …
Magic in the Mundane
Years ago, I had a dreamlike idea of what motherhood would look like. It looked like the time I babysat a 3-year-old boy at the park and we threw sticks over the side of a bridge, laughing hysterically. It looked …
The Restorative, Healing Powers of Awe
Awe research. It’s a real thing and it’s happening at the University of California, Berkeley. A team of psychologists have found that people who experience awe manifest some very interesting behaviors. I would have guessed that awe boosted mood temporarily …
When a Milestone Birthday Is Hard
Some friends a few years my junior recently hit milestone birthdays. You know the ones. They end in a zero. And with each friend’s approaching day, I sat through the same group discussion. It went something like this: as the …
Brazen: Pick Pomegranates
What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65 . . . and you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life? —Anne Lamott When I was a kid my …