Our Version of Normal

My husband's family says "I love you" all the time. My family didn't. That's not because my parents didn't love me. I never doubted that they did. They just expressed it differently.  My mom's love was impossible to miss. She always seemed to know what to say when I was anxious, uncertain, or overwhelmed by a situation. I think her advice mattered so much because it came from someone who consistently lived what she taught. She was the one I went to with worries, questions, and the everyday things that felt big when I was young. I felt safe just being near her and was deeply attached to her. My mom may have rarely said "I love you," but I heard it every day. Throughout my life, my mom always dropped everything when I needed her most. At my children's births, she was right there beside me. She helped Matt and me navigate C-sections, the twins’ NICU stay, and Lily’s Down syndrome diagnosis. She grieved with me during difficult times, but never l...

I think most of us carry around a picture of what our lives will look like. We don't always realize we're carrying it, but it's there, tucked quietly in our hearts, shaped by childhood, family, and unspoken dreams. When I was twelve, my parents had a surprise baby, a new sister. There were already four of us, born within five years. My oldest brother was fifteen, my second brother was thirteen and a half, and my younger sister was ten.  I got a front-row seat to motherhood watching my mom love and care for my new baby sister.  I was fascinated by all of it. The growing belly, giving birth, breastfeeding, the endless laundry, the meals cooked while juggling pre-teens and teenagers, and still meeting my father's needs. She managed it in ways that felt both familiar and entirely new to me. Almost three years later, my parents added one more to our family: my youngest brother. My mom was forty-two and my dad was forty-three. To me, my little sister and brother...

Reflections from a retreat talk on being called, chosen, and sent as daughters of the Holy Spirit. I used to think acceptance was something that happened once. That eventually you reached a place where you made peace with the hard thing and then moved forward. I’m a wife and a mom of six. And five of my children have some level of disability, autism or Down syndrome. One of my daughters has both. My life has been full and beautiful, but also very different than what I imagined. And it didn’t all happen at once. In 2003, I was already well into navigating life with my twin boys’ autism diagnosis, while also raising their older brother. We were just figuring things out as we went and letting go of what I thought life would look like. I really thought I had found my footing and was handling things pretty well. But I’ve come to see that acceptance doesn’t happen once. It comes in layers.  And over the years, there have been other layers too: Infertility… adoption… other unexpected hear...