Child of the Abrahamic Covenant
Bethel: The Pile of Rocks Where Heaven Opens In 1998, I went to Israel to study abroad. My mom and my dad both lived in Israel when they were young adults, not together, but separately, before they married. From a very young age, we always had falafel and baklava, and I grew up knowing that I, too, would go to Israel. At BYU Jerusalem, we had a class of 30 and a cohort of 90, and traveled all over Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. One day,...
Emotional Resilience
This presentation was given in Ogden, Utah in February of 2022. Resources are included here for those who want to download the workbook, or review the material. Enjoy! Workbook- Emotional ResilienceDownload St. George Volcano There is charcoal-colored volcanic rock scattered across St. George. At the very top of Snow Canyon is the remnant of an ancient, and now dead, Santa Clara Volcano.Several years ago, we gathered our four kids,...
History in the Making
History in the MakingSeptember 14, 2020 My kids are all at school full time. After 18 years of mothering, it’s the first in a new season of independence for all of us. It’s Monday morning and I have spent some time this morning gathering: gathering my thoughts, gathering my task list, gathering my breakfast, gathering my peace. I am grateful for this time to reflect and prepare for the week. I vacillate in wanting to write...
Favorite Kind of Labouring Day
As a little girl I loved planting. It was always a favorite day to release the pony packs of flowers and veggies and bury the roots into the freshly turned soil. We had a long, skinny lot that was surrounded by large trees. So there was lots of shade to hope around. One year a pumpkin vine grew up into the fence, around a tree trunk and over a branch in our neighbor’s yard. a small pumpkin grew perfectly round as it hung from a branch...
Flames
We sat under a blanket of stars at Bear Lake. When the lights are all out you can see the mist of the Milky-way and billions of stars. When the bonfire started, the crowd was as raucous as the flames, there was laughter, songs and s’mores. As the volume of the crowd faded, so too did the fire. One by one parents lead their sleepy kids off to bed. Eventually the fire turned into a fallen pile of fuel. When the logs were separated the...