by Tara Johnson "You need to wear your son out." I blinked slowly, trying to understand what the older woman who had approached me had said, a task made difficult by my son's screams of temper and my own strangled nerves. I felt frayed. Exhausted. The excursion into Walmart was not going well.  I'd had high hopes for the grocery store run. After all, my son's terrible two fits were getting better. I had been diligent with him at home. He seemed to comprehend life wasn't just about him. We were making progress. Less screams of temper. A slight bending…

It's an odd thing to see a long awaited dream fulfilled. You reach, you pray, you cry, you plan, you anguish and lament, you work and beg, and pray some more. Hoping, wondering. Sometimes, your focus can become muddled. That was the case for me a few years ago. My dream was to become a published author. An admirable goal, especially since I wanted to write stories that pointed people towards Jesus, right? The problem with dreams, with any dream, is they can become gods if we let them. In all my dream striving, I lost my joy and instead…

Sometimes, Moms just know. They know when all isn't as it should be. When the other three year olds are able to count to ten but their child can't articulate "one", "two" or "three". Moms know when it's strange that their three old son can't ask for a specific food when he's hungry, but instead opens his mouth and yells, "Eat!" She knows that something is wrong when her adorable little boy is three and she's still not heard him say his own name. She knows. I knew.  Well meaning people told me not to worry about it. After all,…

  Redemption is a beautiful thing. There is something so poignant, something almost sweeping and, dare I say, romantic about someone with power and position plucking a nobody from the crowd and claiming them as their own. Perhaps that's why I've so frequently heard the Gospel compared to a fairy tale story. A king sweeping the lonely girl away to a land where all her dreams come true. Not long ago, I heard someone compare what God has done to the story of Cinderella. I understand the gist of this kind of thinking, but it just doesn't ring true. Not…

Noise can be a drug. It's a numbing anesthesia, insulating us from pain and reality, a distraction that keeps us from looking too deeply at what haunts us most. We do the same with food, with shopping and debit cards, with possessions and degrees, with sex and alcohol, power, possessions, money, relationships, children...yet the more I consider the bombastic nature of our society, the more I believe noise has become the preferred drug of choice. By noise I don't mean only auditory transmission, but sensory overload. Cell phones are nearly sewn on to fingertips. Television shows and music can viewed…

Last week I told you my word for the year was presence. I've become desperate to release the juggling, the striving, running and cistern-filling that never actually fills. I yearn for Jesus' presence...to sit at His feet. To learn and love and live. I don't want to care about what each day brings as long as I can journey through each day with Him. I thought my biggest obstacle to sitting in His presence would be learning to rest. For the past few years, I thought tending to chores around the house was resting. Compared to standing on stage while…