The People Inside

You can’t take it with you. Purse, wallet, cell phone, car keys—you must stow everything in the coin-operated lockers in the corner of the lobby.

Someone Like Me

On the first day of my teenage stint as a volunteer in the local hospital, my supervisor gave me a tour.

Hope After the Psych Ward

A few hours after my discharge from the psychiatric ward of our local hospital, I walked over to my daughter's elementary school to pick her up from first grade.

God Does Not Panic

My cousin had been in perfect health all of her 35 years until one day when she unexpectedly stopped breathing.

The Lives I Have Lived Inside My Head

In one, I am a principal.

The Beauty of Simplicity

Let’s see… I’ll get out Sriracha, Tabasco, Pink Himalayan Salt… and grated cheese?

Women and God

I was invited (probably because I’m married to the one who did the asking) to sit on a panel this morning at church discussing what it means to be a woman, created in the image of God.

"What Did the Sickness Make Your Brain Do?"

My daughter was six when I climbed into her bed and tried to explain psychosis.

A Suicidal Pastor's Wife on Easter Sunday

One year on Easter Sunday, I was feeling suicidal.

Mothering With Mental Illness

Of all the books, articles, and blogs written by, for, and about people with mental illnesses, and their parents, and their children, not many give voice to the unique challenge of parenting while dealing with one of these diagnoses.

Find more essays on faith, mental illness, parenting, child sexual abuse, and other topics archived on my previous blog.