Inside the Mind of an Educator

  As our children were growing up, we had dinner around the table every single night. Whether it was the actual table at home, a picnic blanket at a ballfield, or the tailgate as we traveled across the country, our kids knew there was no skipping a meal with all the faces around the table. It was imperative to raise kids who knew how to put away the rest of the world, eat with manners, and talk about their lives. We shared many laughs, debates, fears, hopes, dreams, and tears in that space. We took turns every night praying because we wanted our kids to know how to have a conversation with Jesus and to give thanks. We believed that families who eat together stay together because they can be real, learn to be vulnerable, share, and be part of a unit that cares for one another. We welcomed others to the table often and hope we modeled the importance of that time together. Table time has been one of the greatest blessings in our lives, and I still love having people gathered around a ...

Today is a day of goodness and joy, not of despondency and fear. A day when I was blessed to wake up next to my best friend of thirty years, in a home that God has helped us build, filled with love and hope. A day to be thankful for all the ways our compassionate Father shows His faithfulness, and another opportunity for His love to transform and deepen my relationship with Jesus.  Going bald is a side effect of chemotherapy, and it is one I kept pushing down the road on this breast cancer journey as much as I could. The hair has been falling out for weeks, and the loss intensified after the third chemotherapy round. The handfuls of hair coming out in the shower were scary at first, and then as the nausea grew worse with the medicine, the more overwhelming it felt. Gavin had to comb and remove as much as he could on days I was really nauseated while I kept my eyes shut. However,  something I never knew was the actual pain involved when the hair follicles are dying, and the wei...