Core Truths

This post comes straight to you from the front seat of our loaded down SUV. I am looking out at the hilly treetops of Kentucky. I am listening to the sounds coming from our children in the backseats. At this particular moment, it is as you’d expect:  “Mom, her hair is touching me! She keeps doing it!” “I’m not touching her!” “Keep your blanket on your side of the seat!” “Where are we going?” “How much longer until we get there?” “What are we doing tomorrow?” “Can you plug in my phone?” Sweet, sweet sounds coming from the children. But there’s more to this story. This road trip started taking shape months ago. Hubby and I decided where we wanted to go, when we would go, and we started making our arrangements. We booked places to stay, we planned out what we would do, and we figured out how we would get there. Yesterday, we spent a total of 15 hours driving before we made it to the hotel we had reserved back in March. We were confident when we left hom...

There are a lot of things in this world we could want. There are so many things to think about, to save up for, and to plan for just in case. We open savings accounts, we buy insurance policies. I think it is easy to get caught up in “I wish” or “I want.” I think it is easy to get caught up in too much social media and to find ourselves buried beneath perceived inadequacies. I think it is easy to feel like there is this made-up finish line that we can never quite reach. There are also times of want where we are ready to be relieved of great hardship, great suffering, or great confusion. There are times we feel we are so low that all we want is to regain who or what we once were. Times we feel alone, lost, forsaken, hopeless and what we want is to be comforted.  You know, it’s ironic, that we often find ourselves in the pursuit of happiness, when happiness was never something we were promised, or even something we were told we should expect. I am reminded of this by the...

My goodness! It is late, my house is incredibly loud, and I have quietly sneaked out of the ruckus and secluded myself into my bedroom to write. There is only one person in the house that got the heads up I was exiting from the chaos.  The one person that is now solely in charge of the kids, and the mess, and the bath time, and the cuddle time. The one person that most definitely does not usually get the appreciation he deserves. I typically write from the perspective of a mother’s heart. When I say, “I feel you, I know what you are going through,” I mean it. When I talk about dads, it’s different. I don’t know what it is like to be a dad. I can’t just pretend that because I know what it’s like to be a mom, that I automatically can feel things the same way a dad may feel things. So instead of saying, “I feel you,” instead, I will let you know, “I see you.” I see the dads. The selfless, hard-working, tired, fun, loving, strong, gentle dads. I remember the day my brand-n...

Good old summertime. I honestly started counting down to summer as soon as spring break ended. First, I was counting the weeks until summer would begin.  Then it turned into every Monday telling myself how many more Mondays we had left. Then, as summer got closer and closer, it turned into me counting down exactly how many days we had left until the kids were home full-time and the rigid schedule would be over. Then finally, it happened! Yes, we made it through teacher appreciation week where our elementary student was asked to bring in a different gift every day of the week. We made it through field trip season, where each of our kids asked for a different, increasingly larger amount of money every time I turned around. We even made it through the banquet and performance season, where it seemed there was some celebration or show every other night of the week.  The kids survived the dwindling lunch and snack supplies. Yes, we went from, “Kids, let me know what you all...

I love Sundays.   This hasn’t always been the case, and I can tell you why. Years ago, when we had all little kids, Sundays were hard.  We would spend the entire week shuffling kids around, going to work, going to basketball practice, going to soccer practice, going to religious education class, going to gymnastics.  Then we would spend all of our Saturdays at basketball games, at soccer games, at kid birthday parties.  If we were lucky, we would try to squeeze in some of our weekly errands to free up a little bit of our time on Sundays. But Sundays left little time for rest.  Our day started in the early morning just like all of our other days.  It started out waking up kids, looking for dresses and shoes only worn on that one day, looking for khakis and belts, dress shoes and socks.  Most likely one of the girls would remember last minute she had been waiting all week to wear her cross necklace to church.  We would spend the next 15...