You wouldn’t know it by looking around my home (a drop zone for busy teenagers), but the targeted ads that pop up when I’m online often revolve around cleaning products—laundry detergent, dish soap, and multi-purpose cleaners.

On November 29, 2023, the president of an organization my husband was affiliated with demanded I leave my service dog in a kennel and rent a wheelchair for the night of a public fundraising event on December 2nd.

“I want to know Christ” (Philippians 3:10). Flipping through a book called Parenting Advice to Ignore in Art and Life, which cleverly combines unhelpful parenting advice with classic paintings, my husband and I stopped and laughed at this one…

When Steve’s email hit my inbox with this header, my heart sank. Oh no. What happened? Did he fall? Steve is one of my spiritual fathers. An elder at our church decades ago, he and his wife, Pat, modeled godly parenting to my husband, David, and me as we sought to raise our young children in the faith.

As a kid, I was infamous for shortcuts, especially when it came to hems that happened to be coming loose. More than once, I would hear an exasperated exclamation (usually my name was somewhere in it), when my mom had found yet another one of my makeshift solutions in one of my pants legs or along my skirt hem while she was doing the laundry.

By the time we were situated with our son in his hospital room, equipped with bracelets and badges identifying us as his parents, it was past 10:00 p.m. A nurse checked on us and turned down the lights.

Moving to a new home seems exciting . . . at first. Then reality sets in: merely changing one’s address can take months to ensure it’s been updated everywhere it needs to be. The act of packing and unpacking one’s belongings is a Herculean feat that taxes both brain and body.

The still light of late autumn leaked through the trees, illuminating two large statues in the middle of the woods on the monastery property. We had hiked there together guided by veteran visitors.

My dad had two girls. No sons. So, from his daughters—my big sister and me—Daddy expected a show of “male-like” strength and toughness that I didn’t always show . . . or understand.

As a kid, I never really liked tug-of-war. From the sidelines, it always looked more fun than it was. The thrill of winning, of being stronger, would beckon me to come and take my place on the line. The moment I picked up the rope, though, I would realize I had once again made a mistake.

A friend is deeply involved in humanitarian work. He knows what it’s like to be poor. Perhaps that’s why he has an extra measure of compassion for people rendered invisible by society or the church. He and his wife are helpers—always lending a hand to friends, family, peers, and those who are less fortunate.

“Can you really not throw this away?” I say to my husband with irritation, holding up a crumpled piece of paper that I know, before I pick it up, is a list of groceries that he bought at the store.