A few weeks ago, I needed to take my son in to have a couple of teeth extracted.
Can I just say this is not my favorite mom-job?
THE AWKWARD MOM
because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having
Category: fear (page 1 of 13)
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One (just one) of the problems with writing a parenting book is the whisper spitting in my ear sometimes as I parent my oh-so-real-life teens. Like the one who yelled at me across the lawn this morning. (See? I’m wondering if I should have let you know that.)
Enter the Whisper: And you wrote a parenting book?
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If someone ever asked me what surprised me about living in Africa, I’d have a million answers. Nearly every day held in its ebony hands something to learn or figure out or shake my head over: a motorcycle carrying a coffin. A girl made to sell banana pancakes for a dime in a dangerous neighborhood rather than go to school. Birds the color of the sky.
But I could never have known how working and living among and helping the powerless would change me–to the point it’s now a vital spiritual discipline in my book–and quite arguably, in God’s.
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He must have been two when it happened: back when his cheeks still looked like he was storing up nuts for winter. (Now, at 16, he just eats like he’s storing up for winter.)
The store’s fluorescent lights buzzed above, and the air conditioning was running full-blast there in the South.
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Something beautiful happened in my family last weekend.
This is me, in San Diego, with my husband–and my oldest son, who has your back. He is one of the United States’ newest marines.
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Dear readers–I’m pulling this one from the archives today for you…mostly because it was what I needed. -J.
Do you remember the first time you wondered if God really was good?
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My daughter was 14 months old when she got glasses and began to wear the felt purple eye patch I’d stitched for her. Coincidentally, it was the same month, she started walking at last and pushed through her first tooth. We’d noticed she frequently went cross-eyed.
It wasn’t until she could talk that the opthalmologist was able to understand she didn’t have a muscle problem. She had a genetic condition from my side called Dewayne’s Syndrome, from a missing cranial nerve.
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It was a conversation in my cubicle more than a decade ago, but my friend’s words remain seared in my mind: “You know, I think God loves strugglers.”
You know? I see it.
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Okay, yes, I am this big Enneagram 2, and I am frequently caught “two-ing” in my family—overfunctioning like a crazy person, sublimating any needs of my own, etc.
But I also have this monstrous, flapping-larger-than-my-triceps 3-wing. Which means, for all of you unfamiliar with enneagram-speak, that I am an achiever. Goal-setting can fill my sails (…to the point of what we’ll call “Christian workaholism”).
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I’ve been feeling an unexpected, if not undesired, kinship with my man Moses lately.
Remember when Moses comes down the mountain to the all-out idol-worshipping party of 2 million people (who God just brought out of Egypt and is about to give the Ten Commandments)? Moses loses it and breaks the stone tablets in half.
Pull up a chair for practical ideas and discussions on the parenting, relationships, and spirituality we're all army-crawling through every day.
After five and a half years in Uganda, my family and I returned to the U.S., where I write and speak professionally, and we continue to work on behalf of the poor.
My first solo book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids' Hearts (Harvest House), released October 2021.
#instagoodness
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