Deck the halls with boughs of holly Fa la la la la la la la la ‘Tis the season to be jolly Fa la la la la la la la la One of my favorite moments during this past Thanksgiving holiday was watching my young nieces and nephew sing Christmas carols led my brother-in-law’s...

Here we are at the end of November, and we all get a day off (or a few!) to eat turkey and pumpkin pie and watch football with our relatives. Why? Well, though the pilgrims might be credited with the first official Thanksgiving feast, it was actually George Washington...

It was a day. I sat at the table with my junior and senior students, explaining a major theme from Moby Dick. Or at least trying to explain it. I realized the more I spoke, the less I really understood what I was talking about.  But by golly, I kept trying, which...

My husband is quite obsessed with his fire pit. He has spent many a fall day out in the yard gathering and burning leaves, and he likes to coax me to sit by the fire in the evenings. We go through a lot of firewood. Once a piece of wood has been blackened and burned...

“I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one speaking.” These were the words of Ezekiel after he saw a vision of the glory of the Lord (Ezekiel 1:28b). His response was to physically fall face down on the ground before the Lord. This posture of humility and...

Nothing good can possibly come of this! How many times has this thought run through my mind when faced with something difficult, or when something is not going the way I hoped? Many times I felt it when Lexi was struggling with addiction. I couldn’t see through the...

What are the things you are known for? What are the things you want to be known for? If I could choose some things to be known for, I would probably think of things like: a teacher who really knows her stuff, a super fun aunt and grandma, a wife and mother of a...

Last weekend at our Hope After Loss retreat, one of the speakers posed the question to us: If you could, would you go back to the person you were before your child died?  After thinking about it, my friends and I decided the answer was no. Though we would do...

The only thing that is consistent in life is change! The older I get, the more I like to stay in my cozy little comfort zone where everything feels safe and easy.  A week and a half ago we moved our entire school - the 7th-12th grades -  into another building...

"And He humbled you and let you hunger…" Deut. 8:3 Humility. This is the beginning point. Pride has no need for God. Perfection has no need for a Savior. Self-reliance has no need for a Heavenly Father. Humility is the realization that I myself am imperfect and...