Twenty years later, I still cringe at the memory. Oh, let’s call a spade a spade: it’s memories. I was then as I am now, a hopeless romantic. Only as a sixteen-year-old who’s lived a blessedly sheltered life, I was perhaps a little less prepared for a little thing called “reality.” (If, by “little,” you…
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Sunday Love Letters
When I was writing about Lent, an odd theme kept cropping up: relationships. It seemed off–I grew up associating Lent with repentance, sorrow and fasting. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the purpose of repentance, sorrow and fasting is to mend the broken relationship with God. I came to…
Read MoreWhat Luke Skywalker Taught Me About Motherhood
It was one of those days.To wit: Michael would not consent to be laid down…all day. Imagine. Every time I tried to make lunch, use the bathroom, or aid another child in a self-care task, I had to endure heartbreaking wails. Nicholas kept whimpering pathetically, “I want you, Mommy!” (translated: I want to sit on your…
Read MoreTwenty-Seven Days
If you knew you only had twenty-seven days, how would you live life differently? I spoke recently to a friend whose daughter gave birth to a child they knew was not going to live. Indeed, it was a miracle that the child was not stillborn. “People tiptoe around us,” she said. “They’re afraid to ask.…
Read MoreConfessions of a Wistful Romantic
I dreamed I kissed a man who was not my husband. It was one of those dreamy, romantic, revelatory kisses that squeezes your chest and leaves you breathless. It was amazing…and then horrifying. How could I face the man to whom I had promised forever? Did I really have to tell him? After all, there…
Read MoreWhat I Have Seen With My Own Eyes (a 7QT post)
Lately I’ve been enjoying the mental challenge of writing to a prompt while remaining true to my essential message. Or at least, attempting to do so. (Faithful readers, you’ve been quiet lately. I miss you! It makes me wonder if I’m not as successful as I think I am!) Anyway, Mama Kat’s Writers Workshop used…
Read MoreSecond Chances
“I think about the years I spent just passing through I’d like to have the time I lost and give it back to you But you just smile and take my hand You’ve been there you understand It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true.” —“God bless the broken road,” Carrie Underwood…
Read MoreTouched, Served, Gifted
There’s a commercial on TV these days for Kleenex. The woman goes around frantically murmuring, “touch…touch…touch…” Finally she gets to the Kleenex box and all time stops while she has this surreal, spiritual moment labeled “feel.” This ad has always bugged me because it shoves human touch into the category irritant, while holding up an…
Read MoreHigh Fidelity, Part 2
[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=wedding+rings&iid=183505″ src=”0179/44c285ca-a17a-4f7e-9e29-a24c45b752db.jpg?adImageId=11831217&imageId=183505″ width=”500″ height=”333″ /] Yesterday morning, I sat nursing Nicholas by the window as usual, when I heard the squawk down the hall. “Christian, Julianna’s awake,” I said. “Okay,” he answered. He finished shaving and went into her room as he does most mornings. And, like most mornings, their voices floated…
Read MoreSubmission? Pshaw!
Did you know there is a whole Bible study based on “wives, submit to your husbands”? Although I live in the middle, I often find myself being harder on the right than on the left. I think that is because I live on the right side of the middle, and thus I consider conservatives to…
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Kathleen M. Basi 