Last month here in San Diego, parents were hit with a double whammy of circumstances which made proper planning paramount. During the last weekend before school started, when last-minute moms like me were raiding what was left in the Target bins, Hurricane Hillary was due to hit us—the first tropical storm to hit southern California […]
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I cherish my slow summer mornings at our family’s farm in Michigan. I can sip my coffee on the back porch and listen to birdsong, watch the sun rise over the fields. Looking out over the oak trees, I wish that every morning could be a slow summer morning, but I know that eventually all […]
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The scene in the Barbie movie that plucked at my heartstrings and that I can’t stop thinking about is a blip of dialog on a park bench. Barbie has just been cut down by a teenage girl, and—feeling hurt and sad—she sits next to an old woman. The old woman is wearing a dark green […]
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I grew up asking my parents if we were there yet. On road trips from Orange County to Oregon to visit my grandparents, and later on planes when my parents became missionaries to France. Wedged next to my little brother and sister, and struggling with motion sickness, the question stemmed from my own impatience and […]
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Every day has felt a bit like Christmas at our house lately. Amazon packages arrive in waves. I open them, make a note of who to thank, then bring the contents to work with me. In my role as Director of Children and Family Ministry at my church, I’m in charge of running VBS (Vacation […]
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In this day and age, our identity is often tied to our work. It’s why we add “just” before “stay-at-home mom.” We point to our productivity as a sign of our worth. We monetize our hobbies into side-hustles. We declare ourselves a “girl boss” and then we slay the day. We outdo each other with […]
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I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and that’s how I came to be out our local Barnes & Noble one Friday morning. The last time I stepped into a Barnes & Noble, we were living in a different state, and the bookstore had been connected to a mall, back when […]
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One of my responsibilities as part of my new job as Director of Children and Family Ministry is to teach preschool chapel once a month. Like many churches, we have a thriving preschool on our campus and it’s a delight to see all those 3- and 4-year-olds gathered together in a squirmy mob on chapel […]
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Our sphere of control is comically small: this is what we all learned in the early months of the pandemic. As we bumped up into our new reality—not knowing how long quarantine would last, being unable to make plans for the future, feeling the stress of uncertainty every day—we faced our own extreme limitations. During […]
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Last year was my first time observing Lent by “giving something up.” Throughout the years, I was vaguely aware that Christians from other denominations participated in some sort of fasting during the 40 days that led up to Easter. I always thought this was strange and unnecessarily hard: why wouldn’t everyone just skip to the […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 