The other day my son was looking through a box in the closet that had old photos in it. He would grab each photo and ask me if that was him or his sister. At the bottom of the box he found a framed photo of me holding a newborn baby in my arms. He asked the same question. I didn't ...

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, we read the akeydah - the story of the binding of Isaac. This year I am chanting the first three verses:

After these things, G-d tested Abraham, saying to him "Abraham!" And he said "Here I am." God said, "Take your son, your only one, the ...

We walked, side by side. Slowly. A close friend was going through a divorce when he sighed and said, "I think God meant for children to be with their biological parents."

Heartbroken at being separated from his daughters, he'd become keenly aware of the inherent—seemingly unavoidable—wrongness ...

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called Why Adoption Feels Harder than Abortion. My intention with the post was to help people like me–people who have not ever experienced an unplanned pregnancy, people who have never faced the fear and stress and sadness of a choice between keeping ...

William came home from school a few weeks back and he said, "Mom." He said it as a sentence, the way he does when he has something important to tell me. And then again, "Mom. My friend Ashley is not good at listening. And she screams."

William is three. He attends a local public ...

Some of you may know that Bristol Palin has recently joined the roster of Patheos bloggers. Some of you may also know that Bristol and I have at least one other thing in common–she has a brother with Down syndrome who is close in age to Penny. So I noticed when she wrote about ...

I received an email from a reader of this blog a few weeks ago. Lois Uptigrove shared her eulogy for her friend Delane with me, and I asked her to edit it a little bit so you could enjoy this portrait of a life well lived as well.

Delane Ohlhauser was born in 1932 in the farming ...

For any of you who have checked my website lately, you might have noticed it's been a bit static. My web designer is closing shop, so I'm in the process of moving to a new site. Although the current site is still worth your time as far as seeing a slideshow of Penny as a baby ...

I'm working on a new e-book with Patheos right now. It's tentatively titled "What Every Woman Needs to Know About Prenatal Testing." I'm writing it in an attempt to offer a relatively short and accessible guide to pregnant women who want to know what questions to ask and how ...

I have the privilege right now of doing premarital counseling for a young couple who plan to wed in October. I've never done this type of counseling before, but it has been a wonderful way to reflect upon our own marriage and try to offer some words of practical advice and wisdom ...

On Friday night, Peter was on duty in our dorm of thirty boys. As we sat down to dinner with a dear old friend who had flown in from Denver earlier in the day, there was a knock on the door. The knocks continued throughout our meal, with Peter popping up to answer a question ...

They met in college and fell in love. They talked about getting married, and he started looking for a ring. They dreamed about life together, a life of beauty and joy, raising babies and laughing with friends and growing old.

They did not imagine a car accident. They did ...

Penny lost her third tooth today. They are falling out just as expected–first the bottom two, and now one up top with the one beside it wiggling as well. It came home from school with her in a small lavender box.

At first, she was feeling brave. "The tooth fairy can ...

"My Perfect Child," an essay in Christianity Today about coming to understand Penny as a gift and her life as very similar to mine in both its brokenness and its perfection, won First Place in the Evangelical Press Association's Higher Ground Awards for 2011. One paragraph from ...

I've held naive assumptions about both abortion and adoption in the past, and I've asked naive questions. One of those questions brings the two together as I've had trouble understanding why women who are unexpectedly pregnant chose abortion instead of adoption, especially when ...