My husband and I are attending a funeral today. Our dear friend's mother died on Sunday from complications arising from surgery last week. I have no doubt that she is with Jesus, and yet I also wept with sorrow and anger when I learned the news. The faith that she is in God's ...
When Sarah Palin first accepted the vice presidential nomination in 2008, I thought I should be excited that a fellow mother of a child with Down syndrome might sit in the White House. But my response to her candidacy was mixed at best. Long before she became a polarizing figure ...
For those of you who have already read A Good and Perfect Gift, this post will seem quite familiar, as it is adapted from Chapter One. For those of you who haven't, our birth story with Penny was featured last week on designmom.com. And whether you've read it or not, go to amyjuliabecker.com ...
When Penny was diagnosed with Down syndrome, the doctors told us that she would have "mental retardation." I didn't really know what those words meant, but I imagined them as a shadow that would hover over every aspect of her development from there on. I assumed she would have ...
A Good and Perfect Gift came out in September. It hasn't come close to best seller status, but it is trucking right along. I had a chance to talk with a book group about it (on the phone–we were technologically incompetent enough that we couldn't figure out Iphone's Face Time ...
Long time readers of this blog may remember that I used to run a weekly guest post called "Perfectly Human." The purpose of the posts was to offer first-hand experience of the common humanity of people with disabilities. I ran out of obvious contacts for a while, but ...
I meant to share the link to this great post by my friend Karen Swallow Prior a while back when she wrote it. Thankfully, the truths it contains are timeless. Although they boil down to "get enough sleep, it's good for your soul," the post is very worth reading in full: Want ...
