30 More Days of Grace

I stumbled into church Sunday morning a whopping 7 minutes before the service started, and I was feeling pretty good about that accomplishment.  I wandered over to my typical, might-as-well-be assigned, seat in the back corner and dropped my purse onto the chair, but before I could even sit down, I was intercepted by a great friend whose mother-in-law in the hospital with end stage vascular disease.  His wife has been camped out at the hospital with her mom for the last 10 days or so, and he was at church with the family and extended family.  I hadn’t heard an update for the morning, yet, so he quickly filled me in on the night and the exhaustion they all were feeling.  I’ve sat in that same hospital, in those same rooms, and even worked with those same surgeons, and as he explained all the things happening in that hospital, I felt that weight on my own shoulders from my own hours in their shoes.  Before he even finished updating me, a friend from bible study st...

And, God said, “Mow Thy Grass” You know those people who just thrive on awkward situations?  The ones who find some sense of joy and weird adrenaline rushes from the strangest, most uncomfortable situations on the planet? Yeah, I’m not one of those people In fact, I hate awkward situations.  I suck at small talk; I laugh awkwardly at the most inopportune times, and I avoid confrontation like the plague.  So, you can imagine the absolute dread overwhelming me as I walked into a counseling session with my daughter knowing my ex-husband who isn’t exactly on the most stellar terms with me right now would be sitting in the waiting room with us.   The first few minutes of the afternoon went about as I had expected--a door slammed in my face, no words exchanged, etc, etc.  And, then, the dreaded point in the afternoon where our daughter went in with the counselor by herself, leaving the two of us seated together on a way too small couch in t...

Orange is, in Fact, NOT the New Black I walked into a birthday party a few days after getting out of prison, only to be met with shock--not because I was there, but because I was there and looked like a normal human being.  These were people I have known my whole life, and the consistent theme of the night was, “you look so good.” To be completely honest with you, I didn’t really think that much of it during the evening.  No, it wasn’t until I walked into church the next morning and again was met with the same looks of shock and the same comments of, “wow, you look so good.” Now, by this point, I have to admit, I started to get a bit of a complex.  I was definitely wondering how terrible I must have looked before I went to prison for everyone to be so amazed at the fact that I am tan, healthy, and rested!   And then it hit me. People were amazed at how I looked because, in reality, we have no idea what prison is actually like!  We know what...

If I Learned One Thing in Prison: Lessons from Behind the Fence: Lesson 1: The Truth will set you Free I spent the last 8 months in prison. Literally. I spent the last 20 years in prison. Figuratively. And you know what?  The figurative prison was much more difficult than the literal prison.   For real. The Truth will Set You Free...Except when it Lands you Behind Bars I spent my 20s and 30s living what appeared to be the perfect and somewhat charmed life to the outside world.  I smiled when I was supposed to smile. I cried on cue when I was supposed to cry. And, like so many strong and good Christian women, I sacrificed everything that made me for the sake of everything everyone else needed.   And it ultimately destroyed me. It broke me into a million little pieces. And then the pieces shattered into dust.   I got married at 20, graduated college at 22, got a teaching job immediately, and started teaching...

Kid People: I’m not a kid person. I know.  I know.  I’m a woman.  I’m a mom.  Statistically speaking, I should be a kid person; however, I can absolutely assure you that I am, in fact, not a kid person.   I like my own kid, so I feel like that should count for something, but I’ve also raised that kid and talked to her like a little adult since she was...well...born.  I don’t do baby talk.  I feel like a complete moron when I even attempt to talk like that.  It’s not natural to me AT ALL, and it has to be obvious to even the youngest audience that it is not my forte.   And to all of you kid people out there:  God bless you.  I don’t know how you do it, but God bless your souls.  You have a gift.  Seriously, an amazing gift that God did not bless me with! My brother has 4 kids: an 11 year old daughter and sons that are 9, 4, and 2 (God bless his soul as well).  I spent the weekend with them, a...