On December 15, 2025 I attended Desree Mendoza’s service. She was beautiful and she was deeply and unmistakably loved. The sanctuary was standing room only, family, friends, children, neighbors, and co-workers, all there because her life made a difference. Because she mattered. Because love leaves marks that grief can never erase. After paying my respects […]

Motherhood is a full-contact sport. I don’t care what anybody says. Some moms are out here making laminated snack schedules and matching monogrammed devotionals. Meanwhile, I’m over here whispering, “Lord, multiply my minutes,” while frantically digging through my purse like a raccoon trying to find a permission slip. Let’s just say I love Jesus wholeheartedly…but […]

Welfare. I don’t talk about this part of my life very often, but like many Americans, I grew up on welfare. My birth family depended on it, food stamps, government housing, Medicaid, all of it. As a young adult, I remember telling myself that one of my life goals was to never have to live […]

“Forty wasn’t punishment, it was preparation.” This is what is churning in my mind today! I am just beginning to recognize the importance of my forty years. 😭 If you had told me years ago that I’d be sitting at a Directors’ Retreat for a church I now get to serve, I don’t think I […]

Yesterday I think I understood what Mary must’ve felt when she realized she lost 10-year-old Jesus… because yesterday I lost 10-year-old Willow Grace at The Well (Church). We were at an event, and I was working my table for Foster325, thinking Willow was just hanging out near the start and finish line, cheering people on. […]

I couldn’t sleep last night until I finished this. I hope someone needs it, I’m sleepy. When I Felt Alone On September 11, 2001, I was less than one month from my 17th Birthday. I was living alone in a small trailer in a trailer park. I had been on my own since I was […]

Happy Sunday! My random story today is about saying goodbye to mashed potatoes! For a long time, I thought love meant affirmation. I thought it was confirmation. I thought love was someone saying “You’re right” when I was wrong or “You’re valid” when I was hurting. But through nearly two decades of marriage, I’ve learned […]

She was a weed. Not chosen, not planned, not purchased from a nursery with careful hands and pride-filled soil. She was scattered, tossed by wilderness winds into ground that was cracked, unwanted, unprepared. Still, she grew. Still, she bloomed. Not to boast of herself, but to whisper: “I am here. I matter. Even weeds bring […]

A Family Confession:Sometimes I’m just over here winging it with these humans I love. I never want to make parenthood sound easy, because it’s not. It’s more like stumbling through a land of cactus in shorts and flip flops, trying not to let the splinters stop me from moving forward. Then I realize I get […]

I didn’t expect a simple comb to make me cry today. While cleaning out a box, I found it, the comb of a student I served a few years ago. He never meant to leave it. One day, he stopped coming to school. I was so devestated when I learned he had been removed because […]