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The Facade of Control

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We like to think that we can control our lives. We like to think that we can plan our days out, our lives out.  We keep planners, we mark our calendars, and we try to use our money wisely. We try to control our children, our spouses, our job situations, and our finances. Yet, the unexpected still happens. We can and should save money for emergencies, but we may still find ourselves shifting though envelope after envelope of unexpected medical bills. We can and should take care of our bodies, but we will still see uncertain times with our health one way or another.  I long for the day when this world has been remade anew, and my profession is not needed. No more sickness, no more death, no more medicine. We can and should work diligently in our jobs, but our hard work may still result our business closing down. We can and should love and honor our spouses, but we will all find ourselves in the midst of a hard season of marriage, wondering how we will work through our strugg
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Finding your Groove in Motherhood

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Before becoming a mom, I had ideas about what I hoped my life as a mom would look like. I had visions of fun times in the kitchen, adventures in nature, and hours spent creating or sewing something beautiful for them or with them. Then the Lord gave us children, and I had a hard time finding my feet.  The challenges that came with a new child were not always simple. There were days that I longed to be back at work, because I knew how to fix problems at the pharmacy. I didn't know what to do with a child who would not sleep or could not eat without vomiting. I began to find that times in the kitchen were not always fun. Sewing was stressful with kids afoot. I stepped back a thought about what had shaped my idea of motherhood.  I spent a lot of time growing up with my mom's sister, my mom and their mother. My ideas of motherhood came from my time spent with three different women, with different skills and abilities. I am one person, and I realized that I could not be someone
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Body Image - See your Worth

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We women definitely struggle with body image at times. Some of us more than others.  As a pharmacist, I have talked to a number of men who were wrestling with it as well.  I have seen members of both sexes, worry and obsess about whether or not they looked a certain way. My struggles with weight and body image began as a pre-teen.  I remember pouring over copies of "Seventeen" magazine, wishing I looked like the girls in the photos.  I developed some unhealthy eating habits, and I didn't take charge of my weight until after I became a mom.  My kids deserved a mom who was willing to take care of herself.  I want to have the energy to take care of them, play with them, and show up in their lives when they need me.   The photo on the left is when I was at probably at my heaviest weight. It was taken in 2011.  The one in the middle is from March 2014, after I had hit my goal weight on Weight Watchers.  The photo on the right was taken this past May, and I had put on
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Joy Clouded by Fear

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We celebrated by son's birthday a few weeks ago.  One morning leading up to his birthday, I was helping him get ready for school. We started talking about the day he was born.  He asked me if that was the day when we first saw him.  I explained that it wasn't, but it was the day that we found out that he had been born. My husband and I met him the next day. My boy then asked me, "Were you so happy?" Oh my. That should be an easy, "Yes! We were over-the-moon-happy!"  It isn't though. He doesn't know all the details to our adoption story, and there's part of it that should wait until he is older and better able to understand.  My answer to him that morning was, "Yes. We were happy."  Then I helped him button his shirt and he was off to the next thing. We were both excited when we got the call that we were chosen to be his parents.  And then my head began spinning.  We had done very little to prepare to bring a newborn home, because
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Putting Pen to Paper

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Let me introduce myself a bit. My name is Stephanie. I'm a mom of two children that my husband and I were blessed to adopt.  I am a Jesus follower, a wife, and I work part-time as a pharmacist.  Before I became a mom, I enjoyed writing. I had a blog that I kept updated.  Then the kids that we had waited for such a long time for, finally arrived.  I was swimming in a sea of diapers, and I stopped writing.  I have missed it. Writing is therapeutic for me. It is time to pick up the pen again. I grew up in the church, but I didn't have a good understanding of how a Christian should navigate the turbulent waters of suffering.  I had this simplistic idea that if you trusted Jesus, everything would be ok.  The truth is that if you trust Jesus, everything will ultimately be better than you could ever have imagined - and you won't fully understand the goodness that flowed from your suffering until you have entered eternity. My life was turned upside down as a 19 year old when
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