Essays
The Greatest Gifts We Can Give Our Teens
We all love a good checklist, don’t we? “Five things you must do this fall!”“Ten ways to tell your kids you love them!”“Three things every parent must do!” Where, pray tell, is the checklist for how to raise young adults who love Jesus and never stray from their faith? I’d argue that we’ve put the…
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What the Korean Mother Martyrs Teach Us
Reading the stories of the Korean saints to me is like sparks flying when meeting a new mom at the park. There’s the thrill of each shared connection and an eagerness for more. When I learn about the Korean saints, I find threads connecting me to them in our shared Korean heritage. As a mother,…
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Loneliness, Jesus, and My Mothering Spirit
I fell apart in my kitchen a few nights after another school shooting that left children and teachers dead. My kids were asleep, and I was washing the dishes when my tightly leashed emotions finally broke free. Anger, grief, and hopelessness washed over me and my soapy, shaking hands. The weight of the vocation of…
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When Prayers Go Unanswered
In fall 2021, I was bombarding heaven with prayers for my daughter, who was starting her senior year of high school. She had received a scholarship to play basketball at an elite high school, but she had spent most of her sophomore year sidelined with shin-splints and her junior year sitting on the sidelines with…
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Called by the Swiss Alphorn Into the Arms of the Creator
Three years into living in picturesque Switzerland, I sat in a warm bath on a hot August afternoon trying to ease miscarriage contractions. I soaked in discomfort, both physically and mentally. Once again I found myself at the end of my rope, stuck at the bottom of a deep, dark pit that I didn’t have…
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Waiting for Resurrection: Depression and Pregnancy
I’m lying flat on my back in a hospital examination room, acid reflux burning in my throat. A polite male doctor scans my protruding belly as I stare at the graying tiles on the ceiling while praying hard and fast, “Please be okay. Please be okay.” It was a routine appointment until my 34-week bump…
READ MORE
Pruning My Idea of a Perfect Life
At some point early in our marriage, my husband and I took a shine to the idea of living on a self-sufficient homestead. After poring over books about the Catholic back-to-the-land movement, Catholic Worker farms, and homesteading, we thought we’d found the perfect escape from the normal 9-to-5. We had our plan: purchase a house…
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Love Poured Out
I pace around our living room, wringing my hands, instinctively practicing the deep breathing of my labor weeks earlier—slow, sharp inhale…long, forceful exhale—in an effort to calm myself down. Eric holds our tiny firstborn, who sucks vigorously on one of my husband’s pinkies with all the ferocity of a ravenous vacuum cleaner. Eric tentatively ventures:…
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Keep Me Awake: Prayer as a Mother
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed” — Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day” I stand in an open field, watching for signs of rain. An hour…
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Lament for a Tree
It was a morning like any other, except for the chainsaws. They started early—before my two-year-old was even up—and continued on well past her afternoon nap. While the coffee brewed, I peeked out the back window and saw them: hard hats in highlighter yellow dotting the tree line, and our tree in particular. Our urban…
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Love That Overcomes Darkness
In the Chinese language, the word for good is made up of two parts: the word for feminine and the word for son or child. I am considered thoroughly lucky and blessed to have borne a daughter, followed five and a half years later by a plucky son. 好 It is good. It was good,…
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Grace at Night: A Bedtime Diary
Outside the nursery, darkness sets. Behind the red black-out curtains, not a hint of light breaks through. I rock back and forth with my head against the chair, newborn Charlotte’s small body leaning into mine, the only light coming from a small night light across the room. Together we close our eyes to the sound…
READ MORE
We all love a good checklist, don’t we? “Five things you must do this fall!”“Ten ways to tell your kids you love them!”“Three things every parent must do!” Where, pray tell, is the checklist for how to raise young adults who love Jesus and never stray from their faith? I’d argue that we’ve put the…
READ MORE
Reading the stories of the Korean saints to me is like sparks flying when meeting a new mom at the park. There’s the thrill of each shared connection and an eagerness for more. When I learn about the Korean saints, I find threads connecting me to them in our shared Korean heritage. As a mother,…
READ MORE
I fell apart in my kitchen a few nights after another school shooting that left children and teachers dead. My kids were asleep, and I was washing the dishes when my tightly leashed emotions finally broke free. Anger, grief, and hopelessness washed over me and my soapy, shaking hands. The weight of the vocation of…
READ MORE
In fall 2021, I was bombarding heaven with prayers for my daughter, who was starting her senior year of high school. She had received a scholarship to play basketball at an elite high school, but she had spent most of her sophomore year sidelined with shin-splints and her junior year sitting on the sidelines with…
READ MORE
Three years into living in picturesque Switzerland, I sat in a warm bath on a hot August afternoon trying to ease miscarriage contractions. I soaked in discomfort, both physically and mentally. Once again I found myself at the end of my rope, stuck at the bottom of a deep, dark pit that I didn’t have…
READ MORE
I’m lying flat on my back in a hospital examination room, acid reflux burning in my throat. A polite male doctor scans my protruding belly as I stare at the graying tiles on the ceiling while praying hard and fast, “Please be okay. Please be okay.” It was a routine appointment until my 34-week bump…
READ MORE
At some point early in our marriage, my husband and I took a shine to the idea of living on a self-sufficient homestead. After poring over books about the Catholic back-to-the-land movement, Catholic Worker farms, and homesteading, we thought we’d found the perfect escape from the normal 9-to-5. We had our plan: purchase a house…
READ MORE
I pace around our living room, wringing my hands, instinctively practicing the deep breathing of my labor weeks earlier—slow, sharp inhale…long, forceful exhale—in an effort to calm myself down. Eric holds our tiny firstborn, who sucks vigorously on one of my husband’s pinkies with all the ferocity of a ravenous vacuum cleaner. Eric tentatively ventures:…
READ MORE
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed” — Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day” I stand in an open field, watching for signs of rain. An hour…
READ MORE
It was a morning like any other, except for the chainsaws. They started early—before my two-year-old was even up—and continued on well past her afternoon nap. While the coffee brewed, I peeked out the back window and saw them: hard hats in highlighter yellow dotting the tree line, and our tree in particular. Our urban…
READ MORE
In the Chinese language, the word for good is made up of two parts: the word for feminine and the word for son or child. I am considered thoroughly lucky and blessed to have borne a daughter, followed five and a half years later by a plucky son. 好 It is good. It was good,…
READ MORE
Outside the nursery, darkness sets. Behind the red black-out curtains, not a hint of light breaks through. I rock back and forth with my head against the chair, newborn Charlotte’s small body leaning into mine, the only light coming from a small night light across the room. Together we close our eyes to the sound…
READ MORE