Forum: Moments for Mom

Moments for Mom — August 2010 I tend to see the frustrating things in my kids…the things I think need changing…the things that I’m mad at myself for not being more consistent about. One example is I’ve noticed that with summer comes a lot more together time for them, and so their bickering has...

Moments for Mom July 2010 Here’s what I’m hoping for this summer…longer stretches with my kids. Really. And that statement surprises me, I have to say. I’ve made it known that I’m not “one of those kinds of moms”. I love my kids. Like super completely love them. And I capital L love the...

Moments for Mom June 2010 My kids are at the ages where they can occasionally stay home alone together. It feels odd to get a babysitter for a 13- year-old and an almost 12-year-old, especially now that Sara has begun to babysit for others, but it still feels like I’m holding an experiment...

Moments for Mom — April 2010 The other night while putting my eleven-year-old man-of-few-words son to bed, I asked him, “How’s your life going, bud?” And he replied, “What do you mean?” “Well, like, how’s school, family, friends, church…that kind of stuff?” I answered. “I’ll give them each a...

Moments for Mom May 2010 There’s something about being a mom and living out the day-to-day with your kids, that you sometimes lose sight of who they are. At least, that’s been my experience. I look at Sara and Jack much more as “my kids” then I do as “Sara, whole person on her own” and...

Moments for Mom March 2010 I recently read about triangles in relationships. That sometimes, especially in the family dynamic, there are triangles. Meaning, there is a third person in a relationship that has either inserted herself unnecessarily or has been dragged in due to some kind of...

Moments for Mom — February 2010 Yesterday would have been my eighteenth wedding anniversary. Had my now-husband, then-fiance, not broken our engagement, that is. That was my first, first-person heartbreak. Meaning, I had gone through being a child of divorce, but that was more about my parents...

Moments for Mom May 2008 A couple months ago I talked about slowing down, about maybe even stopping. Then I stopped. I quit my job of four-and-a-half years. At the church I’ve attended for fourteen-and-a-half years. I never thought I’d leave that job. I thought they’d have to wheel me out...

Moments for Mom January 2010 I love getting things done. Crossing off items on my to do list. Clicking the X in an Outlook task box. Recycling a just-read magazine. Returning library books and videos. Deleting all my emails at the end of a day. Twice a year going through every document...

Moments for Mom April 2008 It was March 7, 2008 --- the morning I was to leave for Sierra Leone, Africa for the first time, when I had this conversation with my 9-year-old son, Jack: Jack: I have one question for you. Beth: Okay, go ahead. J: Who said you had to go to Africa for ten days?...

Moments for Mom December 2009 I had to give my first Christmas talk of the season on November 3. It was an odd 60 degree day in Illinois. Halloween candy was still fresh in my pantry. Thanksgiving hadn’t even crossed my mind yet, let alone Christmas, until I looked on my speaking schedule. ...

Moments for Mom May 2009 This will not be your run-of-the-mill light-and-fluffy Mother’s Day column. Nope. This month I’m talking about our very real enemy. I’ve written about this before. But I’m going to get a bit more specific. I’ve known for awhile that I have an enemy…that those of...

Moments for Mom April 2009 I had a speaking engagement yesterday that went…okay. Not horribly…I didn’t trip or anything. But not amazingly either…no one came barreling up to me to tell me I had just changed her life. It was somewhere in between. In the blah zone. Which I don’t get. ...

Moments for Mom November 2009 I struggled with friendships growing up. Like, really, really struggled. I moved a lot, which I’m sure had something to do with it, but still…I couldn’t find good friends, couldn’t keep good friends. It was a constant source of stress throughout my entire...

Moments for Mom July 2007 Every once in awhile, I remind myself and you, my readers, of the importance of good friends. This is going to be one of those times. I just got back from a long weekend with three girlfriends out of town (thanks to my Dad’s outrageous generosity). We had an...

Moments for Mom September 2009 I have an eleven-year-old son which, for some reason, immediately conjures up the phrase no man’s land. There’s just something about an eleven-year-old boy that seems so in-between. He wants to be a man, he wants to play football, he wants me to teach him how...

Moments for Mom October 2009 I just saw a photograph of a menu. It listed five items along with the prices. No big deal, right? Wrong. The items listed are as follows: China girl, Hong Kong girl, Malay girl, Philippine girl, Russian girl. And for a price, you can have one for the night....

Moments for Mom September 2008 My ten-year-old son asked me to read him something from the Bible before he went to bed last night. I asked if he were looking for something with Jesus in it – a miracle, or story, a healing or his resurrection maybe. He said, “No. I want a battle”. The book...

Moments for Mom - August 2009 Today I had one role: Sara’s mom. I didn’t write (until right now). I didn’t clean or do laundry (not a huge sacrifice). I just did a few things that moms have to do from time to time. She had a small medical procedure that required sleep deprivation. Well, any mom...

Moments for Mom March 2009 The other morning, the first thought that popped into my head as I started to wake up was, “on your knees”. Hmm...that’s odd, I thought. Ummm, Jesus, if this is You, I’ll get on my knees during my quiet time with You in just a bit. (Yes, that’s what I said to...

My husband sent me an email from work this morning linking me to a news article that reported on Steven Curtis Chapman’s adopted five-year-old daughter being killed yesterday, run over accidentally by her older brother in their driveway. Now, I don’t know Steven and Mary Beth Chapman, but my...

Moments for Mom - July 2009 Happy summer, ladies! This isn’t going to be a typical column…I’m just going to share some news-y things with you this month. I just got back from Liberia, West Africa, leading a team of six women doing AIDS work. It was a beautiful trip, full of so many God...

Moments for Mom June 2009 Today I’m thinking about rejection. Well, the combination of rejection and perseverance. Of walking uphill when all odds are against you. Of following the Quiet Voice upward despite what the crowds below are saying. Yesterday I got word that my third and fourth...

Moments for Mom February 2009 It was a typical weekday 3pm, finding me waiting in my typical spot by the front door, watching for my twelve-year-old, sixth-grade daughter to come home from school. But her typical greeting of “homework” or “good day” would not be coming from her lips. Instead,...

Moments for Mom - January 2009 My 2008 could be summed up in one made-up word: upendedness. So much of my little world was flipped over or tossed around or scratched out or started again. I found myself jobless this year. Sort of. Outside-the-home jobless. And it has been and is a...