MyLeslieNotebook

The alternate title for this blog post just might be, "Being a Wife and Mother is Not Glamorous." But there is a deeper, spiritual truth, I promise. Last week I had two things going on in the same day: I had an 8-year-old son with a terrible migraine accompanied by a fever. He laid in his room in the dark all afternoon, trying to find relief.  At the same time, my husband is very busy this time of year and he had an old oven that he needed cleaned so he could get it out of our barn. (If you are right now asking why we had a spare, old oven, I'd tell you that this kind of stuff is common in our family because we are very weird. And it's not even the only old oven we have in our barn.) ANYWAY, since my husband was extremely busy, I was cleaning the oven. [Let me insert this here: if you've never cleaned an oven, in the heat, inside and out, you've never really been dirty.] I spent over an hour and walked away from a spotless oven feeling like all the gun...

Full confession: I am a morning person. I wake up with a smile. I get excited to go to bed at 9:00 because I know I'll wake up early the next morning. My favorite time of day is right at the dawn, when the sun peeks out from behind the horizon and whispers God's name. I'm a wife and homeschool mom who is also a part-time piano teacher, writer, musician, business owner, and unpaid life coach to all of you out there. I love my life. But the one thing that makes it all work, holds everything together, and keeps me standing strong whatever comes is this: how I spend my early. Early is different for different people. I know a woman--one of the godliest out there--who got up at 3:30 for years so she could study her Bible before she had to go to work. That's early. My husband had a great-uncle who got up at 4:00 every day to spend an hour reading his Bible and an hour praying. Then he could start his 14- or 16-hour days of farming. That's early. And regardless of ...

Few holidays bring up as many emotions as Mother's Day.  For the majority, Mother's Day is a time to buy flowers and a card or maybe even make a strawberry shortcake for Mom or Grandma.  But—oh, hear me carefully here— many woman cringe at the thought of Mother's Day. The pain and memories and living-with-it-every-day burden is more than they can bear: There are women whose mothers were horrible. They may have been abusive, absent, or neglecting. Neither nurturing or loving, these mothers made their children's lives full of fear or even terror. There are women whose mothers are dead. Mother's Day with all its joy and happiness is not comforting or soothing for them. There are women who desire to be mothers but are unable to bear children. Mother's Day is a taunting reminder of what they are not. There are women who feel they are terrible mothers. Their kids may be rebellious or hurtful or maybe they left long ago and cut off all contact.  There are ...