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2 weeks ago | 
incourage.me | Michele Cushatt |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
When I was a young girl, what I wanted more than anything else was to be a wife and mother. I spent countless hours imagining my future family, including two or four children and a handsome and romantic husband. And, of course, all of them would adore me. That was a given. As for a career, my aspirations change day by day. But my desire for marriage and children never wavered.
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3 weeks ago | 
incourage.me | Jessica Turner |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
During the pandemic, my marriage of 16 years ended. After I took some time to grieve what I lost and became confident in myself as an individual, I found myself ready to date. While I didn’t expect it to be easy (it had been twenty years since I’d dated!), it was even harder than I expected. I felt like I was looking for a unicorn. I also didn’t anticipate how rejection and heartbreak would impact my mental health.
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3 weeks ago | 
incourage.me | Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp |Jennifer Lee
Ask any Midwesterner about “fake spring” and they’ll surely have a story for you about packing away all the coats on a warm day only to have to pull the winter gear back out the next week. While I’m all for a shortened winter, I think these false-start spring days have something to teach us about the spiritual practice of living expectantly — even when we don’t feel particularly hopeful. We brought our newborn son home from the hospital on Easter.
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1 month ago | 
incourage.me | Michele Cushatt |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
“Lord, teach me to pray.”This was my first prayer for 2025. I’m not one who typically chooses a word or theme for the year. But on December 29, when I pulled out a fresh spiral notebook and started journaling thoughts around the coming year, these five words poured immediately from my pen. “Lord, teach me to pray.”A strange prayer, perhaps, considering I’m a 50-something woman who has been church-ing and praying for half a century. Don’t I already know how to pray?
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2 months ago | 
incourage.me | Sarah Sandifer |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
We’ve lived in this new home, this new city, for six months now — both no time at all and also an eternity. For six months now, I’ve attended anything and everything, all in an attempt to find a friend, plant some roots, belong somewhere. I don’t know any other way. I guess I thought it would be easier? I shouldn’t have, truth be told. I should know by now, as a military spouse, that things take time, even if you don’t want them to.
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2 months ago | 
incourage.me | Becky Keife |Anna Rendell |Dawn Camp |Jennifer Lee
I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty, but I’m pretty sure my middle son’s first word was “Why?!” And certainly, if it wasn’t Elias’s very first word, it has been his most common. Since he was a rosy-cheeked toddler, this child of mine has had an incessant need to know why. Why does that tree grow so tall and why is that rock so hard? Why do I have to go to bed, why are dinosaurs extinct, and why does that tool fix that thing? Why is broccoli good for me? Why do dogs run that way?
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
incourage.me | Laura Kelly Fanucci |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
I was standing at the kitchen sink, elbow-deep in suds (and silent complaints) when I heard the message, loud and strong. Slow down. Look up. The words rang clear as a bell in my mind. All day and all week (maybe all year?) I had been grousing and venting, feeling overwhelmed and overworked as a new mother. Back then we had two children, a toddler and a baby, and their constant needs wore down my patience and energy every day.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
incourage.me | Michele Cushatt |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
We’re now two weeks into the new year. Already I’m exhausted. And annoyed. Everywhere I turn someone is promising me that I could (and should) look better and feel better. I should be further along in my career and my relationships could use some work. Not to mention, am I exercising enough? Eating enough protein? Getting enough sleep? I mean, who can sleep when there’s so much self-improvement to do?
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
incourage.me | Michele Cushatt |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
I bought flowers for myself yesterday. The grocery store had a sale. $6.99 for a dozen roses. White, yellow, hot pink. Long stems with full buds that I knew would soon burst into a glorious multi-petal display. For now, they hovered between sleep and wakefulness. Thus the price tag. But the hints of vibrant color spoke of a future glory, and I couldn’t resist. So I bought a dozen. Shelled out the seven bucks and change. Drove home, carried them inside, through the living room, and into the kitchen.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
incourage.me | Kaitlyn Bouchillon |Anna Rendell |Becky Keife |Dawn Camp
I cried in class last month, blinking furiously, not out of embarrassment but because I couldn’t see the page full of notes in front of me, and I didn’t want to miss a word. Nearly ten years ago, I applied to seminary. My phone’s camera roll still holds the moment forever frozen in time: an acceptance letter held in trembling hands, glassy eyes, and my smile a mile wide. The dream was paused before it officially began due to finances.
