About

About Me:

Greetings and welcome to my blog!

Like all people, my life is multi faceted.  I have been a mom for over twenty–six years, raising three wonderful children to young adults. One son has roots at home and raises meat and dairy goats on the land owned by his father and grandfather; another spread his wings and joined the US Air force. I am also blessed to have the youngest of my four children and my only daughter still under my roof.  In addition to cooking, cleaning, and serving her brother and me, she works with both the young and the old and is a blessing to both.

One child is tucked safely in the arms of God.  A few months shy of his sixth birthday, I watched him with his red hair gleaming in the sun and pride glowing on his freckled smile, ride his bike down dusty, dirt roads. Then just days later, tragedy struck our household.  Twelve years later, twelve years without speech or mobility, I handed him back to God.  For almost eighteen years he was on loan to me and God used his life to drastically change mine.

Last year I took a major step of faith and left my full-time job to work on a book about how Justin’s life impacted mine and how the Lord used his handicaps to open my eyes to the handicaps that lie hidden in my heart.  It is a story of deep grief, disbelief, intense anger, heartache, surrender, grace, and over-whelming joy.  On November 7, I finished the second draft and after a final proofread and some polishing it went to an editor in March. I hope to have it ready for a publisher soon and out before the end of the year.

I married my high school sweetheart right after graduation twenty-seven years ago.  A country girl who loved sunsets, riding bareback, raising chickens, and reading books perched on the top rail of a fence or in the crook of a tree united with a farm boy who hated books but loved tractors and good, rich, soil. He left this earth on May 18, 2001, but I still take flowers to the place where father and son lay side by side.  I know that it is only a shell that lies beneath the ground, but I return to remember them.

I am a country girl that cannot imagine life without the tranquility of a starlit night or the silent pause of the earth that seems to occur just as the sun drops below the horizon in a golden ball of color. I enjoy a cup of hot coffee in the morning and I like to watch the sunset with my hands wrapped around a warm cup of tea. I love gardens, trees, vines, and flowers and spend lots of time trying to make things grow in the dry, barren, soil of the Plains. While I love all things beautiful including pretty clothes and jewelry, I also enjoy dairy goats and chickens, wear mud boots and jeans, and am not opposed to getting dirt under my nails.

For eighteen years I had the privilege of educating my children at home.  I managed my household and educated them for nine years alone, as a single parent.  Homeschooling taught me a lot about myself and my children and I loved every moment of the journey.  It was a journey that completely changed the direction of our lives, and now the crossroads lay so far behind us that I cannot even imagine life lived differently.  Each month I write about the lessons I learned on that beautiful journey in the His Joyful Homeschooler column of The Old Schoolhouse magazine.

For as long as I can remember writing has been a part of my life.  I have often found myself scratching out words in a spiral notebook late at night or in the dark, wee hours of the morning. Occasionally, those words would find their way into a small magazine or publication.  When mere words don’t seem sufficient, they sometimes flow out in the shape of a poem.  Words feel like color and music to me and I write them regardless of whether anyone ever reads them or not – I simply must write. When I am not writing I am often pondering life and writing thoughts in my head sometimes never taking the time to scratch them on paper or losing them before they find their way to paper but always I am writing.

Just a few months after leaving my job, a position with the Post Office as a substitute rural mail carrier literally landed in my lap – over whelming evidence of God’s divine provision – and so now I also carry the mail on occasion.  For now it is enough to allow me to continue to write and I am incredibly grateful for the job.

But of all the many facets of my life, none are of any value were it not for the Grace of God that holds them all together.  Were it not for the redeeming blood that covers my sin all would be for naught, and it is only through Christ in me that there is any hope of glory.  It is by His grace alone that any good comes in or flows through my life, and so to Him alone is all the glory.