Last week, we got a toy catalog in the mail from Amazon. It was just like the ads we used to get from Toys R Us, only this one was thicker and glossier. Inside the front cover, there was a card you could tear out labeled “My Holiday Wish List.” I smuggled it into our […]
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After a lifetime of going, the bravest thing I’ve ever done was to stay. My story starts with the bravery of my parents, when they left everything they knew in California to become lifelong missionaries in France. I was seven when we moved, oblivious to the fact that I should have felt some measure of […]
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We moved to France when I was seven. My parents had signed on to become lifetime missionaries and I was along for the ride. There were moments I definitely wanted to get off that missionary kid ride, and other moments when I wouldn’t trade the thrill of it for anything. But every October 31st that […]
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My inner-16 year old made an appearance last Monday. I thought that I had left her behind, with all of her neediness and angst, but she followed me upstairs when I got home late from youth group. The house was dark and quiet as I crawled into bed beside my husband. My younger self wanted […]
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“The struggle is real,” they say, typically in response to some first world problem. The baby won’t go down for a nap.I can’t find a parking spot at Target.The kids won’t eat the dinner I made for them.I can’t decide between a pumpkin spice latte or a caramel apple cider. But what about the times […]
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This one is for the moms of very little ones, the moms with babies or toddlers underfoot (or – gasp – both!) Is your house a wreck?Are you feeding someone round the clock?Are you only getting nap-sized chunks of sleep?Do you live in yoga pants and dry shampoo?Does your life revolve around nap times?Are you […]
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As I was in the shower one day last week, Henry, my five year old, poked his head around the door. “Mommy? Where’s that empty box of cereal?” Uh oh. “I threw it away!” I said. “It’s in the dumpster now!” I couldn’t see his face from behind the shower curtain but I could hear […]
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When I was growing up in France, my grade school classmates could always be counted on to ask me one of two questions upon finding out that I was American: Do you eat hamburgers every day for lunch and dinner? Do you know Michael Jackson? Both questions were absurd enough to make me laugh! Of […]
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Sometimes, God talks to us in a burning bush, like he did with Moses, and sometimes he speaks to us through a still, small whisper as he did with Elijah. But how does God speak to us today? When we think about hearing from God, we might limit his voice to what we find in […]
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Do you ever make pretend comments? My husband and I have a shorthand saying for when we feel that the other person isn’t truly listening to us. One person will be telling a story — maybe something that happened with the kids or at work — and the other person has their mind elsewhere and […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 