Every mom can close her eyes and visualize the ideal Mother’s Day. Older moms envision their kids all together in one place, laughing and enjoying each other in sanctified bliss. Young moms dream of sweet notes from their kids and a few hours of gorgeous solitude with iced coffee in hand. Sometimes those dreams come true, and sometimes—Poof!—they disappear in a cloud of pointless arguments or...
As adults it’s hard to figure out how to live as Christians in a morally murky and increasingly hostile world, so how do we teach the next generation to develop relationships in the world in which we live? There are so many areas of life to navigate when growing up. In his book, Radically Different: A Student’s Guide to Community, best-selling author Champ Thornton provides an insightful guide...
Recent quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic leaves many people vulnerable to suffering abuse when isolated in a dangerous situation at home. Many abuse survivor advocates and professionals are expecting that child abuse, intimate partner abuse, and sexual assault will increase during the pandemic because of the increased isolation. Most abusers are parents, siblings, intimate partners, or...
“I didn’t think it could happen to me—I thought I’d be someone who’d always be able to cope—but I can’t. I can’t sleep, I can’t focus, I can’t clear my head of the images from the past. That day broke me, and I don’t know where to go from here.” I was sitting in my living room, listening to a friend. She had been so happy, so dynamic, but then her world was turned upside down. A single traumatic...
The party was already planned in my head. I had decided a taco bar would be the most economical way to feed all the guests, which would include our friends and my son’s, as well as both sets of out-of-town grandparents. I would keep the food inside, on the kitchen table covered with an orange tablecloth and other decorations. Everything else would be outside; tables and chairs scattered around...
