Category: Family and Faith

• It’s Not That Deep

  

  Dear Hallie, Today is Mother’s Day and just like every other second Sunday in May for the last ten years, I find myself experiencing a tidal wave of grief mingled gladness. It’s difficult to believe I’ve survived ten Mother’s Days without my mom around to share in the joys and burdens of my own motherhood…

  Laura

  May 8, 2022

  Family and Faith, Learning and Healing Through Nature and Creation, Parenting Teenagers, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Hallie

  Faith, Family, gardening, grace, grandparents, Grief, high school, joy, mothers day, Parenting, teenagers

• The Things that Matter Most

  

  Dear Cade, You challenge me! You challenge me in ways all 16-year-olds challenge their mothers, but it’s so much more than that! You also challenge me in ways only an absent-minded professor challenges and confounds everyone they meet. While you miss obvious and practical realities staring you in the face, you’re more awake to the…

  Laura

  March 20, 2022

  Family and Faith, GT and Twice Exceptional Kids, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Unity in Diversity, Words to Cade

  Children, church, diversity, Education, Faith, Family, gifted and talented, grace, high school, joy, Parenting, siblings, teenagers, truth, twice exceptional, unity

• Grocery Stores and Dirty Floors

  

  Dear Kori Jane, In the two years between Daddy and I’s wedding day and you crashing our party, I used to love going to the grocery store. Perhaps because I’d lived with my own mom right up until that very moment, so the thrill of being in charge of filling a refrigerator and pantry with…

  Laura

  June 5, 2021

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Kori Jane

  childhood, Children, creating, Education, Faith, Family, grace, graduation, growing, growth, high school, joy, Parenting, siblings, spiritual gifts, teenagers, writing

• Dinner Table Conversations

  

  Dear Lacey, I’m constantly wavering between guilt and thankfulness as I watch you grow up in the chaos and shadow of your three older siblings. One guilt, for example, is there are significantly fewer evenings all of us happen to be home and ready to eat at the same hour. And even fewer evenings I…

  Laura

  May 13, 2021

  Family and Faith, Parenting Teenagers, Unity in Diversity, Words to Lacey

  Children, conversation, dinner table, Faith, grace, healing, justice, learning, listening, Parenting, politics, teenagers, thankful, truth, tweens

• Sports, Space, Racecars, and Excavators

  

  Dear Cade, Daddy and I both, for different reasons, hoped that our first child would be a boy. I’d always dreamed of an older brother, so I thought it would be ideal for my oldest to be male, but for your sports loving Daddy he dreamed of shooting hoops and playing catch with his son…

  Laura

  April 23, 2021

  Family and Faith, GT and Twice Exceptional Kids, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Unity in Diversity, Words to Cade

  Children, college admissions, counseling, Education, Faith, gifted and talented, grace, healing, high school, home, learning differences, Learning Disabilities, Parenting, teenagers, test scores, twice exceptional

• Sycamore Trees

  

  Dear Hallie, I feel sorry for everyone who has never discovered the intense magic and utter delight of a soak in a hot bath. There is nothing for me this side of heaven that quite compares to the sensation that spreads as I sink down and let the water engulf me. And then even after…

  Laura

  March 7, 2021

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning and Healing Through Nature and Creation, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Hallie

  beauty, childhood, Children, covid19, Faith, grace, growing up, joy, learning differences, Learning Disabilities, middle school, motherhood, Parenting, teenagers

• Covid-19 Home School

  

  Dear Lacey, Every August for the last 12 years in anticipation of a new school year, the same conversations fill our home, the same shopping trips are taken, and the same prayers are prayed. Conversations that beg the questions- what if there are no friends in our classes, who will we sit with at lunch,…

  Laura

  March 22, 2020

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Lacey

  anxiety, beauty, Children, corona, covid19, Education, Faith, Family, grace, high school, homeschool, homeschooling, invisible illness, joy, junior year, learning differences, Learning Disabilities, middle school, Parenting, social distancing, top ten

• Junior Year

  

  Dear Kori Jane, You are 16. A high school junior. In fact, you’ve just started the second semester of your junior year. We were warned junior year would be brutal, and right about now you’d be ready to throw in the towel. You are no doubt just as sleep deprived, over committed, under nourished, and…

  Laura

  January 18, 2020

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Parenting Teenagers, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Unity in Diversity, Words to Kori Jane

  childhood, Children, college, Education, Faith, Family, grace, high school, joy, junior year, Parenting, stress, teenagers, theatre kids

• Teenagers!?

  

  Dear Lacey, About six weeks ago you turned nine years old! Almost double digits! For months I had been planning to sit down on the 30th of September and write you a lovely birthday letter about how precious and unique God has made you. I even started it at one point but never got past…

  Laura

  November 28, 2019

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning and Healing Through Nature and Creation, Parenting Teenagers, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Lacey

  butterflys, Children, Family, grace, growing up, high school, middle school, motherhood, Parenting, puberty, siblings, sisters, teenagers, time

• The Rain

  Dear Kori Jane, Twelve years ago almost to the day, you and I were heading to a little neighborhood carnival right by our home that we had passed that morning on our way to church. It was nothing fancy, just some hand painted wooden games set out on card tables and a bounce house or…

  Laura

  August 4, 2019

  Family and Faith, Learning and Healing Through Nature and Creation, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Kori Jane

  Children, Faith, Family, grace, grandchildren, Grief, joy, loss, Parenting, rain