Motherhood will always be one of the greatest joys in my life, because I pray that it will continue to offer a fullness far beyond the moment my children are officially grown. But it is not the only joy in my life nor is it the only vocation God has called me to.
The Curse of My Perfectionism
I’ve had to grapple with the fact that perfectionism is a lonely space. A space where you know you should ask for help, where you shouldn’t go it alone, but something keeps telling you that to ask for help is to accept failure.
Looking for Small Victories, Crushed by Small Defeats
When you’re on a constant quest for small victories, small defeats can be crushing. And maybe that’s just what I was feeling. After all, some studies have shown that we need up to five positive experiences to outweigh a single bad experience. While that isn’t the case for every negative experience, the reality that many of us are dealing with is that we are just dealing with a lot.
We Don’t Have to Fear Progress
It was a simpler time. In an era before a global pandemic that turned our lives upside down, before the […]
Leave Town to Better Know Your Country
Maybe it’s time for us to start looking for new ways to force people out of their geographical and digital bubbles and help them to see that we have more in common than we do differences. Domestic exchange programs and building a new Civilian Conservation Corps would be great places to start, developing friendships and connections that potentially last decades. There is no shame in loving our homes and taking great pride in our towns, cities, and states. The problem is when we see those towns, cities, and states as “the best of all possible worlds,” to borrow a phrase from Candide.
I Don’t Want to Return to Normal
Even those least affected by COVID-19 and the ripple effect of its presence will be forever changed. It is understandable to desire a return to “normal.” It is human to look back on the past with a sense of clouded nostalgia, remembering things as we want to remember them, not as they actually were. But before we jump into a return to the way things were, we should take a moment to imagine the way things could be.