Category: The Valley
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God’s Will for My Life
It’s official. I’m off social media. It is far and away my most on-again-off-again relationship, middle school romances notwithstanding. And I’m not totally sure what was the breaking point: the callousness toward Lindsay Clancy’s murdered children, the emptiness of infinite scroll without actually seeing any updates from people I know,…
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Grappling with His Goodness
I woke up yesterday to bright sunshine streaming through our bedroom window. The Lukester slept soundly, the coffee was steaming, and I rolled over to do my ritual reading of a pregnancy app. Sundays mark my turnover from one week of pregnancy to the next, so I often wake up…
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Today’s To-Do List
We woke up Monday morning with an overwhelming weight on our shoulders. We had just come off a jam-packed weekend complete with a baby sprinkle that we hosted, a four-year anniversary of the church we helped plant, and so much energy expended that we didn’t know how we could possibly…
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A Psalm 139 Story
It’s no secret that I didn’t exactly have my dream delivery when Luke Thomas House came into this world. The 36-hour labor, no epidural, full Pitocin, massive-hemorrhage-birth wasn’t a part of my perfect plan. If you’ve read our birth story, you might even be surprised that we’d want another kid…
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If You Ever Watch My Son
If you ever watch my son, there are a few things you must know. I don’t mean simple scheduling / what to do / where to go. It’s not a list of screen time limits / feeding rules / nap routines. I’m talking about the important things you need to…
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If I Had a Blog
It’s not often that my very mathematically-minded, hyper-analytical husband starts a sentence with, “If I had a blog…” It was a Saturday night, our son sound asleep, and we cuddled up by the fire table, fun drinks in hand. He had just spent the entire day with Luke while I…
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A Day in the Life
“You still writing?” A dear friend asked innocently over a gluten-free grazing table. The question was not mean to invoke feelings of shame, yet I bowed my head guiltily and sighed. “Not for a while. Not much going on lately — every day is pretty much the same.” The mundanity…
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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…
House on the Rock 