What I’m Into
Having connected to Leigh Kramer this month through her blog, I’m jumping in on her monthly link-up of What I’m Into for this past month. We’ll resume our regularly scheduled programming of sex, dating, and heavy relationship talks next week. And if you have a blog, you can join the link-up until Wednesday!
3 Tips for When Your Plans Capsize
Seven months ago I left my job as the director of an STD and Teen pregnancy prevention program to strike out on my own as a speaker and writer.
Here was my plan:
Build a blog: Check
Write regularly, even if the only audience is your own mother: Check
Sign-up for and go crazy on every social media outlet known to man: Check
Publish my first book for parents: In Process
Take one full year to build up this new job, then start family:
That’s when God fell on the floor laughing.
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year….Except When It Isn’t.
I love Christmas. The smell of cider and fresh baked cookies, the coming together of friends and family, twinkling lights that make everything a bit warmer, and celebrating the most amazing miracle in human history. For a brief few weeks, everything just seems…cozier.
Peace is on earth and goodwill seems abundant.
Then comes a piercing, heart-rendering reminder that we live in a broken, fallen world where evil does not rest. Perhaps it this backdrop of celebrated joy in a season of innocence and charity that makes evil seems all the more dark and jarring.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, except when tragedy shatters that illusion.
The War on Women
Have you heard of Malala Yousafzai?
She’s a 15-year-old girl in Pakistan who recently made a name for herself by speaking out in defense of education for girls. Since the age of 11, she’s been writing and reporting on the BBC’s Urdu Service.
The Taliban have not taken kindly to her rising prominence, or her outspoken defiance of their teachings. So on October 9th, they shot young Malala in the head while she waited for her school bus. Miraculously the bullet did not penetrate her skull, traveling instead under the skin along the side of her head. She is now in England recovering and is making an amazing comeback.
Two Years in Moments
Tomorrow my husband and I will celebrate two years. Two years since we said “I do,” and embarked on the greatest, most gloriously difficult adventure of our lives.
Marriage.
These past two years have been made of moments that were laugh out loud good, scream in pain hard, and breathtakingly beautiful: