In honor of Earth Day, I want to share our story of Meditating Market.  A year ago, Danny and I began our journey to a more sustainable lifestyle.  After staying home for weeks due to the pandemic, we realized how much trash we filled our bin with every week.  We’re a family of four, and we put an overflowing trash can on the curb every week. Couple that with the release of the Netflix show Down To Earth and we determined it was time to make a change.  Surely we could do better.  Surely things could be different, and we could take responsibility in caring for the Earth ..read more

On the really hard days, it feels like loving a 5 year old.  That’s around the age her childhood started to be stolen from her, and a piece of her was frozen in time.  She needs to be held.  She likes to be rocked back and forth.  Sometimes she throws things.  Maybe she’ll whine, or stomp her feet.  She’ll cry out so loud, you can actually hear her soul hurt.  On days like that, her emotions are too big for her to handle.   Most days, I love a 14 year old.  She talks about getting her drivers license.  She giggles and reads and draws and listen ..read more

When we meet her in heaven, we’ll call her Yana.  It means “God is gracious.” But for a while, God didn’t feel very gracious.   I could feel her in my belly.  I woke up one night tossing and turning because I felt so sick.  That’s how I knew. My husband rushed to the store that morning to get a pregnancy test and I knew the truth before I even saw those two little lines.   A third baby!  We’d be a family of five.  I got so excited about carrying her, holding her, raising her.  I was immediately taken back to how fu ..read more

Month one of our lifestyle change toward zero waste has been full steam ahead. Here’s a breakdown of the steps we’ve taken over the last 30 days to make our home more eco-friendly. Gardening One of the first things we did was start a vegetable garden. I should start by telling you that I have a rotten thumb. I’ve never been able to grow plants, and I have killed just about every succulent I’ve ever had. For some reason though, God smiled on our little garden! Our zucchini plant has taken off- I had no idea how big the leaves would get. It’s beautiful! Our basil and bell pepper plants have bee ..read more

This summer has been one of the most eventful, life changing seasons to date.  In addition to opening our home to foster care, we’ve also started the process of making a big lifestyle change: Zero Waste. Zero Waste sounds super extreme, and in a lot of cases it totally is.  There are some Zero Wasters who can fit a whole year’s worth of trash in a single mason jar.  That’s not a current goal of ours.  Our objective is to dramatically cut back on how much trash we produce, with Zero Waste being the “in a perfect world” scenario.  We also want to have ..read more

Fostering during quarantine is… Spending all day, every day together in the same house Realizing maybe you need a bigger house Reminding everyone to grab their face masks Refilling hand sanitizer bottles A nightly toss-up between movie night or game night  You and your foster, sitting side by side on the couch, reading your own books Trips to Target, to look at new books Driving in the car just to crank the music up loud (“don’t tell Dad how loud this is”)  Sharing songs from each of your childhoods, and surprising her about how not old you actually are Running through the sprinkler ..read more

Welcome home.  I know you’ll only be here for a little while, but I want this space to be yours.  Hang anything you want on the bulletin board.  That’s your creative space, your wall of art or music or color or good grades or photos or maybe just simplicity.  Whatever makes it feel comfortable and familiar to you, I want you to do it.  Let’s pick curtains out together.  We’ll fill those drawers with your favorite things.  We’ll go shopping for clothes that you love. Would you like me to doodle your name?  You can t ..read more

Identity is a word I’ve wrestled with and dissected for years. I’ve written about it as I’ve shared my journey of adoption and reunion, and I’ve thought I had a good understanding of it until now. Titles are a funny thing. They carry a lot of weight and influence. The title of mom or dad carries immense responsibility. There are certain expectations that come with titles like “best friend” or “boss” or “coworker.” People, by sin and nature, disappoint. Parents and spouses will fall short. Addiction, dishonesty, anger, anxiety, judgement, favoritism, abandonment, mental illness and even careers ..read more

Danny and I are doing a marriage study with a group from our church this semester. The study had us each read Psalm 51 and write down our takeaways, then discuss with our spouse. It’s a simple exercise, but it was super eye opening for us! After we read our responses to each other, we stopped and scrunched up our eyebrows. “Did you read the same chapter I read?” Our responses could not have been more different! We went back and read Psalm 51 together. Yes: we read the same thing, and yes: both of our responses for that scripture were accurate. We got a good laugh out of that moment, and realiz ..read more

I didn’t know when I left for work that stormy Thursday morning that I wouldn’t make it home that day. After we wrapped up the morning show, I headed to my 36 week check up. I had a couple false alarms in the days leading up to that with Braxton Hicks contractions that didn’t want to quit. I talked with my nurse before going to the exam room, describing the lightning I experienced that morning at work — jolts that stopped me in my tracks in the hallway. She said it sounded like Eden was getting ready for her big day. We didn’t know how ready she actually was. My doctor listened to my daughter ..read more