Simply Thriving

Just one glace at today’s headlines and the weight of all that’s happening in the world is so heavy: Another little boy dies in Fort McMurray from insecticide poisoning. Leaders meet today on missing and murdered aboriginal women. Sexual assault cases are in progress. A school bus driver is killed. ISIS militants destroy artifacts in Iraq. One hundred Assyrian Christians were captured by ISIS this week. Will WWIII break out as a result? After all of that there is still the everyday weight of our lives. Children who rail against truth, obedience and love. The long, sleepless nights that come with a newborn and threaten to wear down our last smidgen of sanity. More work than there are hours in the day for. Less work than there are hours in the day for. Less money than the month’s bills require. The friend who is battling severe depression. The friend who has cut themselves off from the church family. Family members who have lost all love for each ot...

I absolutely love driving out in the country. Day, night, stormy or clear, the scenery is breathtaking. This past weekend, a dear friend and I made a whirlwind trip up north and got our fill of stunning, natural spectacles in the process.   As we headed back home, night had fallen. The sky was perfectly clear and splashed upon it were millions of lights. We pulled the car off of the highway and down a quiet dirt road to get a better look. Drinking in the sweet smell of the woods in the near spring, we craned our necks, gazing in wonder at the stars and picking out the constellations that we recognized. How small we were in the grand display of God’s splendor that night. Walking back to the car, what caught our eyes but the winsome delicacy of newly budded pussy willows? And there he was again; His glory in the tiny bud that knows, somehow, when it is safe to open. Still filled with the wonder of the previous sky scape, we came to the top of the last hill befo...

It’s incredible to me that children will do anything for a reward. It can be something as small as a candy for picking up their things quickly. Other times it’s a quarter for “babysitting” while I take a shower or while I make a phone call. A few times, as a reward for cleaning their rooms properly, they have been able to have a friend over for the night. Occasionally, when they have been extra helpful, the reward is a date alone with Mommy for hot chocolate or ice cream. My son just finished potty training and the only thing that motivated him to carry on was his giant sticker chart and consequent prize box.   As adults, aren't we similar? The reward for finishing the mountain of dishes is sitting down with a coffee for fifteen minutes. The reward for losing twenty pounds (I wish!!) is a new pair of jeans. The reward for getting the kids tucked into bed is an evening with my hubby, a movie or a good book. On and on it goes. I’m sure you can think of rewards ranging from a cov...

Have you ever had an idea - a brilliant, creative or thoughtful idea that seemed both perfect and timely? Have you ever told that idea to one other person before you had the chance to act on it and the next thing you know it's in motion, but not in your name? There you stand on the sidelines, watching as everyone celebrates your idea and as that one person you shared it with seems to have forgotten where it originated from. It's pretty miserable. I know. It happens to me often! Have you ever rolled out of bed in the morning with no desire to get your kids up, dressed and fed? Is the last thing that you want to do to wash another sink full of dishes that you didn't dirty or to drop everything to take your son to the toilet for the thirteenth time or to spend hours on another supper that will be gobbled up in minutes or to wrangle (what feels like) a million kids down the aisles of the grocery store? Do you have someone in your life who rubs you the wrong way? Maybe the...