• Hope in Suffering,  Sin & Repentance

    How Do You Handle Pain?

    As God has graciously led me to turn and face some bad patterns in my life—habits related to relationships, spiritual disciplines (the most important relationship), life and work duties, health choices—many Scriptures, teachings, and quotes keep coming to my mind at apt moments: If you starve your cravings, they will lessen. Sin separates, the Cross unites. That which is done in secret, with guilt, is never loving of God or neighbor. Wisdom is learning to love what is good for you. Real life is life that is Coram Deo.   But the one phrase that is currently helping me the most is this: How do you handle pain, Tara? You…

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  • Fear Not!

    Irrational Fears (but they feel pretty real … and they had SOME bases in reality)

    Tomorrow I will drive my two young daughters over the (stunning! amazing!) Bozeman Pass: Our time in Bozeman will be brief—just enough time to tour the Museum of the Rockies with my best friend and her daughter—and then to steal away her daughter for a five-day visit. You would think I would only be happy and excited about this trip. But this morning on my walk with Lilikoi (our Golden Retriever), I was besieged by all sorts of (extremely) irrational fears related to the drive: What if I just jerk the wheel of my SUV at 75 mph and we roll and crash and all die? What if I change…

  • Uncategorized

    Might Be Adding a Fourth “Go-To” Recipe: Marinated Flank Steak

    As many of you know, I am 42 years old and still haven’t learned how to cook. But I do have three recipes I can make with relatively consistent success—they are easy, tasty, relatively nutritious, and they meet all of my requirements for giving myself credit re: homemaker-y cooking-ness: You have to do some sort of prep to individual components A recipe and measuring utensils are required and used You apply heat (Yes, yes, I know there are lots of recipes that don’t need heat. And of course I know that REAL cooks don’t need recipes and NEVER measure. But for me, the above three steps are like climbing Mt.…

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  • Uncategorized

    Bye-Bye, Final Vestiges of 1980’s Mauve & Baby Blue Country Chic Wallpaper

    I can’t believe it’s taken us twelve years (when we moved into our house in 2000, I started ripping the 1980’s GEESE IN THE SHAPE OF HEARTS mauve and baby blue wallpaper off of the kitchen walls the moment the door closed on our movers) … but we have finally (finally!) rid our home of the (I’m sure it was very classy 30 years ago) 1980’s accouterments:    It was crazy how quickly today Fred and I moved from total lethargy and even inertia (“No way are we up for a home repair project.”) to counting yellowed plastic outlet covers (and buying beautiful new white ones!) and buying the quart of…

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  • Momma Tara~Parenting,  Teens & Technology

    The Strange, Ensorcelling, Oft-Inaccurate World of Today’s Technology

    I’m having a strange technology week. Some of it has to do with my weeks-old iPhone and my haltingly slow steps into the world of interacting with friends via texting. (Yes. I admit it. Texting really is quite convenient when you have to interact with people on time-sensitive matters. But do I really want to be that connected during my normal day? Even just two days of needing immediately to hear any “alerts” left me with a slight experience of the phantom iPhone vibrations I read about in a June issue of Bloomberg Businesweek. Creepy! Addictive! But very real.) Some of it has to do with the fact that my name…

  • Relationships & Peacemaking,  Singleness & Marriage

    Please Use (Even Just a Few) Words …

    Knowing that it can be unloving (and even selfish) to ask for too many words from a friend (or husband!) who isn’t, shall we say, as much of a verbophile as me … I was a little reticent to ask for more details in a comment Fred recently made. (I don’t want to be a burden! I don’t want to be a Proverbs 27:15 constant dripping of a wife.) But I’m so glad I did and I know that Fred is too. The conversation was about something deeply important to me that it felt like wasn’t that important to Fred. I was trying so hard to be careful and non-accusatory and…

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  • Momma Tara~Parenting

    My favorite hobby is thinking …

    Sophia said a beautiful turn of phrase last night and I thought you might enjoy it too: “My favorite hobby is thinking.” What a great hobby! She just likes to lie there, think a thought, and then mentally run with it.   “It’s SO fun!” I’ll say! And wouldn’t you just love to be a fly on the proverbial walls of her thoughts? I would. I bet it would be fascinating, challenging, entertaining, delightful, introspective … lovely. I’m just so glad for the times she shares her experiences and the deepest cries of her heart with me. What a privilege it is to be her mother, her sister in Christ, and…

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  • Singleness & Marriage

    Is it okay to pursue men?

    I so admire Carolyn McCulley. To quote a great WW episode, “I love her mind. I love her shoes.” I really do! Everything I have ever read or heard from her, I have not only agreed with substantively, I have rejoiced in her gentle and winsome tone–especially when she is talking about people with whom she disagrees. Truly, Carolyn McCulley lives out 2 Timothy 2:24-26: “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth …” On today’s Revive Our…