How I’ve Really Let Myself Go (and what I’m doing about it)

A few weeks ago, I joined one of my friends and her new running group for an easy three miles around downtown. It was dark and cold as we made our way carefully, guided only by the streetlights. I know running in the frigid darkness of a mid-January evening doesn’t sound appealing to most, but

New year, new me? How to Embrace a Better Approach to Change

It was New Years Day and my husband arranged for me to spend a night alone in a hotel room. There was no agenda, aside from a massage scheduled the next afternoon. His gesture and my one-and-only new year’s resolution paired like sharp cheddar cheese and a fine bottle of cabernet. After years of failed

The Year of the &: Five ways to Overcome in 2020

It was the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday in October. I sat at a picnic table at a park 45 minutes from home, accompanied only by my favorite sushi roll, Starbucks drink, Bible and journal. It was my birthday and one of my best friends offered to keep the kids for the afternoon.

How to Let Pain Make you Stronger

I hunched over my kitchen table with tears streaming from my eyes, feeling defeated and hopeless. I was pregnant with our fourth child and our oldest was only five. At the time, our almost-two-year old was—in the kindest terms—completely insufferable. How was I possibly going to bring another baby into this chaos? Not only was

Why Religion Sucks but You Don’t

There are few things that anger me more than religion. If you’ve read my posts, you’ve probably sensed my faith is important to me. In fact, it’s everything to me. The faith I’m surrendered to has nothing to do with religion. I’m focused on becoming completely untangled from the stagnant, dead branches of religious systems,

Finding the Skinny Truth in the Thick of all the Lies

I sat in the exam room of my primary care physician’s office, anxious to get the results of the bloodwork my dermatologist had ordered two weeks prior. My doctor came in, frazzled and busy, asking what I was there for. I told him his office had called me to schedule an appointment to discuss my

How to Spark Change in a World that has Gone Crazy

I was up late several nights this week, scouring the internet for answers. Big Tech’s censorship of some social media accounts I follow provoked me to lift the rug up in effort to find out what’s been brushed underneath it. I quickly found myself knee-deep in “conspiracy theories” that were truly terrifying. I’m not gullible

How We’re Duped by the Lure of Self-Sufficiency (and what we can do about it)

Under the stillness of the cold night sky, our normally busy household sat in silence as my family slept soundly. It was after one in the morning and I was swallowed up in my Kindle, devouring what would become my favorite novel, “Where the Crawdads Sing.” While Delia Owens masterful words spun a tapestry of

Divide and Conquer: How to Identify and Overcome the Real Enemy in Conflict

I wanted to throw my phone against a wall and crumple in sadness from what I was seeing on our family group chat. Hidden and unresolved dissension between two family members had erupted into an explosion of flared tempers, accusations, judgements, justifications and misunderstandings. Some family members abandoned the conversation altogether as others picked sides

What it Really Means to have the Perfect Summer Body

It’s Memorial Day weekend and here in Ohio we’re thrilled to see cooler temperatures and dreary weather replaced by the warmth and sunshine of a new season. However, the brightness of summer’s coming arrival casts a familiar shadow affecting women everywhere. The shadow being the belief that the bodies we have fall short of the