It’s a normal scene here in our small town. Mothers shopping with their adult daughters, friends shopping together—sometimes sharing the same cart. No one thinks anything of it when you get to the checkout line and divide it by household. Or rather, they didn’t. Before. A friend posted on Continue Reading
Personal
Isn’t It Amazing How God Is in the Tiniest Details?
I remember the moment with perfect clarity. My room was a hopeless mess, but one great thing about talking to people on the phone... Wait. I need to correct that. The only great thing about talking to people on the phone is that you can put the phone on speaker (if yours has that capability, Continue Reading
Yeah, Baby! It’s Time for a New Reading Challenge
“Does anyone know a book that has more than six words in the title?” Look, it was the last week of the year. I should have known why someone would ask the question. I didn’t. However, a few cool answers came, including a super-cool sounding book that I’ve got to read. Check it out: The Curious Continue Reading
What’s So Great about Being on Normal People Time?
It began with what I can only call insomnia. That wasn’t the real problem, but the underlying cause of everything created a form of insomnia. Almost overnight, I went from considering a midnight bedtime as being a “night owl” to being happy if I could fall asleep before four… in the morning. For Continue Reading
What Happened When I Met Myself Today?
There’s something strange about coming “home” to Mom’s house here in Noel. See, although we lived here for almost a year when I was a teenager, I never lived in Mom’s house. We lived one street over back then… and then on the other side of the bridge on Lorene Street, but that doesn’t matter, I Continue Reading
Is Crown the Perfect Jewel That Wives Need?
“Where do these authors get this stuff? That book says my husband can beat me, and I have to take it.” I stared at the woman, and if you told me my jaw hung, I would have believed it. I’d just finished the book in question, and hadn’t read that anywhere in there. In fact, as far as I was Continue Reading
3 Unexpected Ways Learning to Trust Will Change Your Life
“Help.” I don’t even remember who I was talking to, but I suspect it was my editor, Christy. However, I do remember the answer. “Okay. What’s up?” Everyone needs friends like this!!! “I’ve done contentment and acceptance, in the Journey of Dreams Series, but I realized I don’t have a Continue Reading
Sometimes Readers Get Inspired & That Inspires Me
The first email came sometime in July of 2012. I admit… I opened an email from “Wesley” with trepidation. Too often emails that come in from men are fake emails from guys in Russia trying to convince you that they’re American generals dying to get to know you. Why they think I can’t hover over their Continue Reading
What’s the Best Thing I Did for My Spiritual Life in 2018?
The words burned into my laptop screen. Five minutes later, I couldn’t tell you if they were crazy or if I was, although I suspected it was the latter. Some things one does not investigate. But seriously, read the whole Bible in 90 days? Why? How on earth would anyone get anything out of it Continue Reading
3 Simple Ways to Destroy Romance in Marriage
Or: The Lessons Learned in Tarnished Silver. Five years ago I released a book on our silver wedding anniversary. Tarnished Silver. Though it wasn’t “our story,” I did put certain elements in the book that were influenced by or directly ripped from our lives. Things like the “cattle drive” feel of Continue Reading
Why the Best Friends Don’t Want You to Change
Eighth grade. We were moving. Again. But this time, I’d read about autograph books in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and remembered how Francie had been so surprised that all the girls had wanted to write in hers—had liked her. It was probably “too good to be true”—for me at least—but I’ve always been Continue Reading
Why Write “Lies” When the Simple Truth Should Suffice?
I’ve shared before that my favorite server, Angela the Wonder Server, once told a man that a “famous author” spends time writing at Denny’s every night. That would be me—the “famous” author. Impressed, the man asked what genre I write in, and Angela knowledgeably said, “Christian fiction.” His Continue Reading