Yesterday would have been my eighteenth wedding anniversary.  Had my now-husband, then-fiance, not broken our engagement, that is.  That was my first, first-person heartbreak.  Meaning, I had gone through being a child of divorce, but that was more about my parents than about me.  So, this was my first, big, hard thing.  And it was devastating.

But I was telling my son about it this morning, leaving out the devastating part, and I said to him, “Had we gotten married on January 25, 1992, when we were supposed to (please imagine me air-quoting feverishly right about now) instead of when we did, I wouldn’t have had you.  You wouldn’t even exist.”  He gave me that look that tells me he totally doesn’t know what I mean.  But when I said those words while looking my sweet boy in the eyes, it took my breath away.

That devastation that I would’ve given anything not to live through back then brought me Sara and Jack.  Because I’m sure that if we’d gotten married earlier, I would’ve started bugging Kevin about having kids earlier, and he would’ve relented earlier, and therefore we would’ve created altogether different human beings (well, God would have, but you know what I mean).

Side note: when I told Jack our actual wedding day and year, he didn’t say anything for a moment (turns out he was calculating) and then he said, incredulously, “You waited another almost two years?!”  My response, mumbled under my breath, “You are preaching to the choir, brother.”  (I got that quizzical look again.) Read the rest of this entry »

I recently read about triangles in relationships.  That sometimes, especially in the family dynamic, there are triangles.  Meaning, there is a third person in a relationship that has either inserted herself unnecessarily or has been dragged in due to some kind of dysfunction.  Talk about a light bulb moment.

I realized that I am the third person in my daughter’s relationship with her father, in my son’s relationship with his father, and my kids’ relationship with each other.  Now, as kids grow up, of course, we are the referees.  A lot.  But my kids are 11 and 13 and I am tired.  Just last week I heard my daughter calling downstairs with this complaint…”Mom, Jack touched my vitamin…” to which I’m thinking, but not saying outloud, “so what?!”.

But this whole triangle thing has gotten me thinking.  The author basically said that every adult is one hundred percent responsible for the health (or decline) of every relationship in their lives.  Though Sara and Jack still need coaching from time to time on respect and conflict resolution, they will eventually be in charge of whether or not the two of them are friends as they move into adulthood.  I can create an environment of kindness but I cannot manufacture anything right now that will guarantee their level of closeness in the future.  If they choose to be close, that’ll be up to them.  And that’s actually quite a relief if you think about it. Read the rest of this entry »

I love getting things done.  Crossing off items on my to do list.  Clicking the X in an Outlook task box.  Recycling a just-read magazine.  Returning library books and videos.  Deleting all my emails at the end of a day.  Twice a year going through every document on my computer and purging.  Striking through yet another accomplished goal, no matter how small.  Being done.  Love that feeling.

And I am a huge fan of the clean slate.  I love new calendars.  New journals.  New checkbook registers.  A blank document in Word.  Starting a new bottle of shampoo.  Opening a new box of cereal.  The I’m sorry and I forgive you after an argument.  The starting over.  Being at the beginning.

So it comes as no surprise that I love January.  I love, love, love December with the first snows and the waiting for and coming of Jesus.  But there’s nothing like a good January to start from scratch.  January 1 is not just another day for me.  It’s a deep breath and a let’s-see-what-this-year’s-going-to-bring. Read the rest of this entry »

I had to give my first Christmas talk of the season on November 3.  It was an odd 60 degree day in Illinois.  Halloween candy was still fresh in my pantry.  Thanksgiving hadn’t even crossed my mind yet, let alone Christmas, until I looked on my speaking schedule.  My first thought was, How in the world am I going to give a sincere Christmas talk already? So I did what any girl would do.  I made myself listen to Christmas music the whole way there.

It worked, but not in the way you might think.  I was singing Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – nothing.  Silent Night – nothing.  Then my favorite Christmas song came on – Amy Grant’s Welcome to Our World.

It starts like this…

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking

How we need to hear from God

You've been promised, we've been waiting

Welcome Holy Child

© Chris Rice

And I was swept away…taken in.  Yes, that’s what I need.  I don’t need the holiday spirit right this minute.  I don’t need to feel like putting up my tree today.  But I do need to hear from God.  I want more of God.

There will be a list as long as my arm waiting for me in the weeks to come.  You have your list accumulating too, I would bet.

And though I usually pray for peace…pray to get everything done and somehow still bring glory to God in the chaos of Christmas, this year, I have only one wish…more of God.

More of God in my friendships, more of God in my mothering, more of God in my marriage, more of God in my heart, more of God in my life, more of God in my heart.

And what better time than right now to ask for more of God…and to receive Him?

Merry Christmas, ladies.  May God meet you just where you are this year.

A great Christmas gift: Elisabeth’s new book, He Is Just That Into You! It can be purchased at https://www.winepressbooks.com/product.asp?pid=2634&search=He+is+just+that+into+you&select=Keywords&ss=1.

And check out the book trailer video here: http://www.vimeo.com/7093233.  Pass it along!

Copyright, Elisabeth K. Corcoran, 2009

Elisabeth lives her with husband and children in Illinois.  She is the author of the devotionals, In Search of Calm: Renewal for a Mother’s Heart (Xulon), Calm in My Chaos: Encouragement for a Mom’s Weary Soul (Kregel), and is excited to announce the release of He Is Just That Into You: Stories of a Faithful God who Pursues, Engages, and Has No Fear of Commitment (WinePress). You can learn more about Elisabeth at www.elisabethcorcoran.com or at http://elisabethcorcoran.blogspot.com/, and you can follow her on Twitter at ekcorcoran or friend her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Elisabeth-Klein-Corcoran/1301703500.

I struggled with friendships growing up.  Like, really, really struggled.  I moved a lot, which I’m sure had something to do with it, but still…I couldn’t find good friends, couldn’t keep good friends.  It was a constant source of stress throughout my entire childhood.

So, to hear my son say recently, “You know the boy who really makes me laugh at lunch?”  “Yep,” I said, smiling.  “He told me I can’t sit with him and his friends anymore today.”

Nothing, and I am pretty sure I literally mean nothing, makes me heart break more than that.  Than hearing one of my children say that they are having friend struggles.  That some kid said something hurtful to them.  (Heart hurting again just thinking about it.)

I actually started to cry.  I don’t know if that helped him at all to know that I really felt for him or if it just made him more sad.

What I wanted to do was go to his school, find that “funny” boy in the cafeteria, and, I don’t know, maybe knock his head against a lunch box or something.  Something Christ-like like that.  But I didn’t do that…don’t go emailing me. Read the rest of this entry »

I just saw a photograph of a menu.  It listed five items along with the prices.  No big deal, right?

Wrong.  The items listed are as follows: China girl, Hong Kong girl, Malay girl, Philippine girl, Russian girl.  And for a price, you can have one for the night.

Imagine a few things with me:

You are buying a plane ticket to a foreign country so you can steal a child’s virginity.

You are a little girl who’s been told she needs to go away for a few weeks only to be sold into slavery.

You are the mother of a child who has debts she cannot pay, more children to feed than there is food, and you’re told that your precious daughter will be taken very good care of if only you let her go away into the city for awhile. Read the rest of this entry »

I have an eleven-year-old son which, for some reason, immediately conjures up the phrase no man’s land. There’s just something about an eleven-year-old boy that seems so in-between.  He wants to be a man, he wants to play football, he wants me to teach him how to drive in parking lots.  And yet, he’s scared to start middle school (okay, I don’t care what age you are, any one would be scared to start middle school), he still tenderly holds my hand when we’re alone, and he doesn’t know what to do with his feelings.

The other day we were driving around and I asked him about school starting…how do you feel about it, bud? Not good, he said.  What about it is not good, I asked.  I don’t know, he replied.

Okay then.  Glad we had this heart to heart, I’m thinking.

This all-too-familiar exchange with him…me asking questions, him answering in less than a handful of monosyllabic words…made me think back to something a guy friend said to me years ago.  I was asking him what he felt about something and he said, without batting an eye and in all honesty, “If I ever figure out what I feel about something, I’ll tell you.” Read the rest of this entry »

Today I had one role: Sara’s mom.  I didn’t write (until right now).  I didn’t clean or do laundry (not a huge sacrifice).  I just did a few things that moms have to do from time to time.  She had a small medical procedure that required sleep deprivation.  Well, any mom knows that if the kid has to be sleep deprived, so does the mom.  So I got up with her at 4am and we watched The Incredibles.  Why not, really?  I made her breakfast at about 5.  Had her take a shower at 6 to stay awake.  I had my devotions, took a shower and we headed out by 8:30.  We sat around a waiting room for an hour and a half, playing I Spy and making totally inappropriate, sleep-deprived, floopy comments about our surroundings, as one can do with an almost-teenager.

And then we went in for the procedure.  A simple EEG that left her strapped to twenty-two wires, lying in a Lazy Boy, needing to keep her eyes closed for almost an hour.  The room was dark and I had nowhere to go and nothing to do but look at my daughter. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I’m thinking about rejection. Well, the combination of rejection and perseverance. Of walking uphill when all odds are against you. Of following the Quiet Voice upward despite what the crowds below are saying.

Yesterday I got word that my third and fourth books were passed on by yet another publisher. And not just yet another, but pretty much my last shot for both of them. It was a banner day. Although I did find a killer dress that somewhat made up for it. But I digress…

This is a death of a dream, but it is also a fork in the road. I had to decide in that moment just after rejection was dispensed — am I going to walk away from this thing that I love or am I going to keep going even though it appears as if I’m not worthy of being published again? Whoa. That’s a sting that stays with you. Read the rest of this entry »

This will not be your run-of-the-mill light-and-fluffy Mother’s Day column. Nope. This month I’m talking about our very real enemy. I’ve written about this before. But I’m going to get a bit more specific.

I’ve known for awhile that I have an enemy…that those of us who follow Christ and take this Christian walk seriously all have an actual enemy that’s as real as you and me. But he’s been prowling around like a lion…around my children. He’s been going after my children. And that is not alright with me.

My children are preteens and with that has come an entirely new shift in my mothering. What was once physically demanding with babies and toddlers and even young school-aged kids has morphed into one emotionally demanding mini-crisis after another. There are hurt feelings and attempted-boyfriends (I don’t think so) and grades that really do matter now and loneliness and lying from time to time. And, I’m sad to say, internet pornography.

Last week I did a fairly random check on my children’s computers and I found pornography on one of them. I literally fell to the ground and wept. Not my babies. Their innocence, in my eyes, gone. Stolen from them. Read the rest of this entry »