Restore, Renew, Rebuild – Reimagining in a Post-Covid World

Isaiah 61:4
Isaiah 61:4

It’s hard to believe we are coming up on two years since the coronavirus – aka Covid-19 changed our world and our society forever. At the beginning of 2020, I had plans to settle into our new life — finally homeowners after eight years of moving and renting — I was ready. I’ve linked a few posts from that time at the bottom of this post if you’d like to

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Blessed for Believing – Proof of a Promise that Took Ten Years to Realize

Isaiah 43:18-19
Isaiah 43:18-19

It was 2016. Nearly five years after moving to California from Idaho, we were on our way back. The verses of Isaiah 43:18-19 had traveled along on a tattered notecard, taped to the side of a half-dozen refrigerators and become a background fixture. Having first spoken to me during a Bible study, I’d believed they were meant for my husband and I — a promise that would be fulfilled if

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Freedom for the Lost – A reminder as Palm Sunday Approaches

“I’m not so lost to myself that I can’t love and pray for others.” Ouch! I wish I could say that quote was my own, but it’s not. These days I feel like I’m in a perpetual cycle of being “lost to myself”. This is not the same as being selfish. I’m lost because I’m overwhelmed on a daily basis. Piles of all kinds lay in tangible and untangle forms

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Removing Little Irritations to Ensure True and Lasting Peace

I don’t like to think of myself as a procrastinator. However, there are things I tend to avoid. Specifically, I avoid things that I’m sure will lead to some type of physical or emotional pain. After living with and managing fibromyalgia symptoms for over a decade now, my procrastination involves more than simply putting something off because of a short-term inconvenience. It takes me longer to recover from painful events. Be it

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A New Thing Springs Up: A New Life and a New Story in Preparation for a Return to Mount Hermon

Last year at this time my life was in a severe upheaval. Since my husband and I had lost our jobs nearly a year earlier, we’d moved twice (locally) and started new jobs. Though we felt more appreciated than at our former employers, the work didn’t pay nearly as well, and the work and commuting demands were taking their toll on us both. Our living situation wasn’t horrible, but it

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The Story Behind Beyond the Valley

The 2nd Edition of Beyond the Valley is available now! ORDER HERE What Makes the No Eye Has Seen Story Unique? Lydia’s Isolation. Imagine the only world you’ve ever known included just you and a single parent? That parent is the only other human you’ve interacted with and you’ve had no choice but to believe all their reasoning about your existence and your purpose? Lydia’s Innocence. In our present age, we are bombarded by

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Ten Tips Toward a Healthy Spirit, Mind, and Body Amidst COVID19 and other 2020 Crises

I’m not sure when or where the three elements that make us human were ordered as mind, body, and soul. But I disagree that our minds should come first as far as care. For me, it’s when my soul is in a healthy, thriving place and space that I can thrive in the areas of my mental and physical health. As of late, it’s my spirit that grieves. The day

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For such a time as this – Thoughts on Easter 2020 amid Covid-19

Tomorrow will mark the first Easter in 20 years that my husband and our kids haven’t gone to church. It will also be the first Easter that we haven’t had all five of our kids home. With three of them living on their own, that makes us four separate households and technically, we shouldn’t be gathering to celebrate. These past few weeks have been hard on me. Even though I’m

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Top 10 – #4 The Back and Forth of Moving

NINE MOVES IN EIGHT YEARS In the past decade my husband, children, and I survived many financial challenges, job changes, health challenges, and NINE MOVES! I’m not sure all our children realize how the past decade truly impacted them. Looking back at my childhood and youth, moving was definitely the marker of many events in my life. And the nine places I’ve called home in the past decade mark a

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Fourth Baby, Faith Baby Turned 18!

On Tuesday, February 4, 2020, we celebrated our son, Jared’s 18th birthday. Our fourth child to enter adulthood, Jared is by no exaggeration the polar-opposite of his brother Dawson (I wrote about him for his 18th a few years back — see that post HERE.) While our ever-expanding family ate dinner in the center of Tucano’s Brazilian Grill, I briefly summarized how Jared came along right after we had overcome

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Top 10 — #3 Back and Forth of Health, Plus 10 Tips for Partnering with God to Stay Healthy!

Decade at a Glance Over the past decade I’ve learned to care for my own personal health and eventually recovered from severe chronic pain and fatigue as I carefully weighed every choice in order to gain the ability to work full-time. Also, our youngest son acquired severe eczema, which led to me spending most of my free time in the kitchen. Then our oldest son received a diagnosis of Celiac

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A midnight epiphany — am I supposed to write time-slip novels?

I’ve been reading them from the start– probably as far back as 2009. My first attempt to draft No Eye Has Seen started with me reading several “time-slip-like” YA novels. At the time, I was writing “Momma Jane” (original title) as a YA and was taking a course in writing children’s fiction. The two books I read as examples, and which I loved so much I still have copies on

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