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"Glitter falling from the sky," he described yesterday's scene and, indeed, today glitter falls from the sky. As sunlight catches snowflakes drifting off the roof, the snowflakes become glitter from the celestial Shaker, creating a magical scene. This extraordinary and beautiful sight seemed to gently enter our world from another. This reminded me of a scene in Boyhood  where the protagonist asks his dad about magic. “Dad, there’s no real magic in the world, right? Like, this second, there’s no elves in the world, right?” The dad responds by describing magical whales and admitting elves do not exist. The other-worldly behavior of whales is magical but I still prefer John's response: "we're not aware of elves in the world but that doesn't mean they don't exist." I wonder how we foster a sense of magical thinking in children and in ourselves. Perhaps more accurate adjectives would be "extraordinary" and "fantastic." Do we qui

For faithful (or even occasional) readers of this site, you'll notice a couple changes. These have been made in anticipation of more to come. Perhaps you've heard me talk about the book I'm writing. I'm taking a look at sibling loss and the hope that God provides to surviving siblings. I've been collecting stories from other surviving siblings to share in this book, endeavoring to encourage other siblings who are journeying through loss. I may showcase some of that writing on this site. The next step in my writing process involves reaching out to potential agents with a goal of publishing this book with a traditional publisher. With that in mind, I've given this site a facelift and invite your feedback. As the top of this website indicates, I'd like to involve you in dialogue about the issues about which I write. Or, what issues are on your heart? I'd love to delve into those and perhaps even offer guest blog posts! As always, thanks for reading and fo

Don't stumble on something that's behind you. ~on the wall of the Great Falls Rescue Mission

After I lost it yesterday, I went to the gym to work off steam. I squatted five sets of 10 reps each. Today I'm unable to walk upright. I'm pretty sure I overextended my back in an attempt to maintain my lumbar curve. That may sound like gobbledy-gook to you. The long and short of it is that my back REALLY hurts today. In researching my overextension issue (& leaning forward issue, too), I came across this gem: " Chances are you’ll Squat less weight after trying to fix your lean forward with the above tips. This can be hard on your ego and it’s tempting to go back to Squatting by leaning forward so you get your regular weight and reps. But you’ll never stop leaning forward if you keep doing it." Read more:  http://stronglifts.com/squat/lean-forward/ How applicable is this to the rest of life? We want to keep pushing because we've successfully accomplished something in the past. When we realize we need to back up and course-correct, we want to keep pushin

today, i lost it. i positively, absolutely had a melt-down. you'd probably expect that of my 20 month old daughter but not today. we went to Barnes & Noble with a friend and her three year old daughter. miriam was pulling things off shelves faster than i could put them back. we should have left then. instead, i tried to stick it out and make this rare get-together work. we sat on the floor, reading a book together until miriam ripped the page out of the book. at that point, i picked up my purse, swooped miriam under one arm, and grabbed the torn book with my free hand, marching all of us up to the front counter. i paid for the book and my sweet friend tried to redeem the visit with a quick catch-up as we stood by the exit. i could feel tears invading my eyes and begged her forgiveness for not being up to a visit at that point. as we sat in the car, hot tears streamed down my face. why was this so damn hard? why did i bother even going to Barnes & Noble where i knew miriam