For years my mom has been saying, “Janet, how did I get to be so old?” I get it now. Yesterday at 10:30 a.m. she called me and said, “I’m celebrating the fact that at this moment I’ve been a mother for 70 years.” Somehow that backhanded blessing was easier to hear than others. Mom’s been a mom for 70 years. It reminded me of a favorite short story called “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. In the story a young girl laments the fact that her insensitive teacher puts an ugly, smelly s

The most peaceful day of the week should be Sunday, right? So, how do your Sundays go? Is it a struggle to get kids up out of bed and looking their best? Is there a last-minute shuffle to get out the door with all the things? Or is there a mindset of “do we really have to do this”? To get to our church on time for the prayer ministry I lead, a 50-minute drive on a good day, we have to leave the house at 7:30 a.m. That means an earlier rising time than any other day of the wee

I remember lyrics from a song from my children’s youth: “With my God I can do valiantly.” I sang it along with them, praying they would be strong and courageous. And they have. They’ve traveled abroad. They’ve overcome hardships. They finished college and have done well professionally. I supposed someone might say the same of me. But I never have been a courageous person. Risks are, well . . . risky. I have avoided great leaps professionally for fear of failure. Until this ye

You’ve heard of The Dating Game, right? How about The Waiting Game? I’m terrible at waiting. Just one example comes from my early teaching days when I chaired our school’s accreditation review committee. If I delegated various writing sections of the report to certain teachers, I knew I’d have to wait until the last minute to put it together. Instead, I wrote those sections myself. Not good, because the report was probably not representative of our whole school. Another examp

I have a fight with myself every day. Every day I tell myself to go for a walk. But then the excuses slip in the door. “It’s cold and windy.” “I have too much to do.” “I’m tired and need a nap.” Yesterday that fight went on for an hour and fifteen minutes. Ridiculous. Whether or not I need the exercise is not as important as the primary reason I walk: prayer. I have been prayerwalking for my community for over 22 years. My book PrayerWalk: Becoming a Woman of Prayer, Strength

Our Honolulu girl visited for several days over the weekend. Our kids conspired to put together an early birthday celebration for a Big Zero I will face at the end of the month. It’s hard knowing your child is an ocean away. The hellos and goodbyes happen in a blink just once or twice a year. In actuality she’s about seven hours away–the same number of hours away our older son is . . . except that he and his family are just at the other end of the state. The melancholy in me

Years ago I asked the folks at my publishing house if they might consider offering my book PrayerWalk in audiobook form. It made sense to me, as people listen to audiobooks when they walk, and many times I’d been asked if the book was available in that form. Instead of saying yes, my publisher gave me the rights to produce it in audio myself. Yikes. I had no idea how to do that. So for three years that permission letter sat on the edge of my desk staring at me. “When?” it see

A year of ups and downs, huh? “Ups?” you say? Yes, despite what’s happened, I am determined to keep #lookingup. A year ago Sunday I flew home from several days visiting with my brother and his wife, who live in Palm Desert CA. While I’d heard of the coronavirus before flying there, I had no idea the impact it would make on the whole world and life as we had known it. I should have had a clue when my flights into and out of Palm Springs were nearly empty. I loved having a whol

Halfway into the closet months of COVID last year, I found myself just paralyzed. I seemingly couldn’t put one foot in front of the other writing-wise. There were many things I wanted to get done, but while I did manage to write blogs daily, nothing else got crossed off my mental list. So I sought the help of my writing coach. Even before our phone meeting, she had prayed for me and asked God for his words of counsel for me. In our conversation she encouraged me and asked how

I’ve had a couple weeks of struggle trying to launch an online masterclass called Prayer School. The chat experts from the venue have been slow to answer and vague in their responses. Then I realized I created the course in the wrong manner and tried to figure out how to shift what I did into the correct spot. Seemingly, “no can do.” I didn’t respond well. Complaints. Pleas. Tears. I didn’t want to have to create the thing all over again. It had taken me two months to put tog