Category: The Valley
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The Day After Death
No one prepares you for the day after losing a loved one. In some ways, it might be even harder than the actual day of their passing. You wake up with a heavy settledness that this is your life now. It’s not a bad dream that you get to wake…
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Talk Later?
I remember being newly married, having no kids, and therefore, regularly able to walk into church with nothing more than a Bible and a journal. Perhaps, in dry seasons, I might carry a Chapstick. I could stay at church for nearly an hour after the gathering, bouncing from conversation to…
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Sovereign or Not
It was a Monday. We had finally gotten that coveted double line on a pregnancy test, announcing the advent of our growing family. We scurried back to St. Vincent and were overwhelmed to see that hopeful heartbeat indicating life inside me once again. Joe and I spent the next several…
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I Forgot to Remember
It’s day nine hundred and seven million of winter. I take back everything I said about longing for cooler temps — I had no idea that a season could be so cruel. We had’t been outside in fourteen weeks, then got a small glimpse of false spring before frost froze…
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Syllogisms
It’s ironic, since I married a math teacher, but my body still has a visceral reaction when I think about my experience with high school math. And middle school math. And, really, with the exception of multiplication tables in second grade (all memorizable), all math. Through all years. I never…
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2025!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year — time to cozy up by the fire (Youtube’s Fireplace with Piano Music on my TV screen while blasting the space heater) and crank out my SIXTH annual recap blog. Last year I did the heavy lifting of hunting down all of…
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Small: In Loving Memory of Hunter Hoffman
I remember pulling up to Indiana Wesleyan on freshman move-in day. My family lugged couches and crates of clothes up dormitory stairs to move my baby brother into the rival school just up the road from Taylor. We bantered about whose school was better while I secretly resented his pristine,…
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Pondering the Incarnation (Covered in Puke)
I’ll say it: I’ve never been much of a baby person. My teenage self was never quick to volunteer as a babysitter. I often preferred the fourth and fifth grade classroom over the nursery volunteer list. And I couldn’t imagine walking up to someone holding a baby and extending my…
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Cutting Blueberries
Tiny, chubby hands slammed a high-chair tray lathered with smashed bananas and yogurt. I worked frantically to keep my own breakfast from burning, racing back and forth from a skillet of scrambled eggs to the table where I could break off bite-sized bits of blueberry for my baby boy. But…
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A Backslash on our Christmas Card
It was November 3 — a Monday. A cool breeze coursed through the air and the neighborhood smorgasbord of Michael Myers statues and 12-foot skeletons were replaced by holly jolly blow-up reindeer. Bright yellow bulbs lined the rooftops and the faint whispers of Christmas spirit warmed our weary hearts. My…
House on the Rock 