About a year after my brother, Jim, ended his life, one of his friends asked me to speak to the mother of a young woman who had attempted suicide. Jim’s friend volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House in Cleveland, which offers families housing at little or no
Read more →Chicago is my home. I wasn’t born here, but I’m from here. Usually, where we’re from means where we were born. But that’s not the case for everyone. It’s not for me. Home is the place that shapes and influences us more than anywhere else. It’s a
Read more →On Sept. 11, 2001 I lived in Arlington, Va., a few miles from the Pentagon. When terrorists slammed a jetliner into the famed fortress, I was riding the subway to work, temporarily unaware that my city and my country were under attack. At work I huddled with
Read more →When my first child was born, I was unqualified for the job. If there were a test, I would’ve failed. Knowing my ineptitude, doctors and nurses would’ve snatched Noah and shooed me out of the hospital. A hormonal haze clouded me into thinking I did fail. What
Read more →My son turns 4 years old today. So do I. Noah’s birth was my rebirth. I awakened to the glorious, to the awful. To the sweeping power of a God who saves, redeems, loves. For awhile I mourned the death of my old self. Had life gone
Read more →Last week I attended the Writing for the Soul (WftS) conference in Colorado Springs, Colo. Every year Jerry B. Jenkins and his Christian Writers Guild convene a group of writers, from the very accomplished to beginners. The point is to educate, encourage and empower writers who are
Read more →My family and I are vacationing in Colorado, and today we climbed Pikes Peak. Our Jeep did the actual climbing. But we successfully steered the vehicle skyward, to the mountain’s 14,115-foot summit. The 19-mile drive demands a stealthy crawl in low gear, up an increasingly steep two-lane
Read more →Mom had more faith than anyone I’ve met. Unshakable faith in Christ, really. I was reminded of that recently, as I rifled through a box of nearly forgotten items from my childhood. I landed on an autograph book, a gift for my tenth birthday. Among the few
Read more →Summer was in full-and-glorious bloom when last I wrote here. So was my belly, nearly 40 weeks full of my darling daughter. Nine days later, I gave birth. I settled into a self-imposed hiatus from writing, and suddenly it’s winter. Or so the calendar says. Most of North
Read more →In a few days I’ll cross the third-trimester threshold, and my emotions are mixed. Part of me is eager for my daughter to arrive–a precious bundle of mini-me–so I can see what she looks like, so I can watch my husband and son embrace our new girl.
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