Reluctantly I headed back home. I wasn’t in the mood for a spa visit any more. I wasn’t in the mood for anyone, really. Home, with its hollow walls and plastic faces, seemed the best place to go. I had a plan. I would go home, hole up in my room, and listen to the…
Chapter One – It is what it is
I will never forget the moment the thought entered my head, “Your parents don’t love you.” I was a second grader, and I had just picked up my lunch from the cafeteria and sat down to eat with the rest of my class when I saw the younger kids at the table across from me,…
Okay.. It wasn't a fast. I straight up wanted out. Out of the drama. Out of the posts that were less than authentic. Out of the arguments. The back biting. The passive aggressive warfare meant to injure with wit and snark and the ever revealing emoticons. Off the breeding ground for competition. So, I got…
The Siren’s Song
There's a pain, a numbness, a vacancy left inside one who is molested. It doesn't matter so much the degree to misuse or abuse... The hole presses in with the smallest infraction. There's a shame that comes with the wounds made then that make the scar now that much more noticeable - a guilt that…
Life is loss.
In Ann Voskamp’s book “One Thousand Gifts” this is her admission, her announcement, her proclamation. Life is loss… when, what, who will you lose? It’s not a matter of will I lose, but solely when will I lose. Loss is familiar to me. One of my first childhood memories is wrapped in death.…
Little Orphan Annie
The other day at the movies, we saw a preview for the new Annie. I'm going to have to see more than that one trailer to judge whether or not I'm going to see it. You see, "Annie" holds a special place in my heart. The roles played by Carol Burnett, Albert Finney, Bernadette Peters…
School Daze
Like most parents in The South, last week my kids went back to school. My youngest began her last year of elementary school (I cannot truly be this old!) and my oldest began her seventh grade year. It seems like yesterday I held her in my arms for the first time in relief that the…
I wear a Scarlet letter “A”
It was affixed to me a few years ago. I didn't willfully walk into the title, it had searched for me for a long time. Exposing itself to me in childhood, beckoning to me in adolescence, and dangling just above my heart in my young adult years before solidly sewing its flimsy fabric over my…
Touchable God
I remember the first time I heard about the intimacy of Christ. I was sitting in a pew in a tiny Southern Baptist Church at a revival no less. The preacher was talking and I was doodling until God pricked my ears. It was like I knew I needed to pay attention. I had missed…
Selfless Challenge – Week One
Any time you take up a challenge to reflect more of the heart and love of God, the enemy rushes in with arrow pointed, ready to aim. The very day I issued that challenge to myself, was possibly one of the hardest days I have had in a long time. I was physically ill and…
Leslie A. Lamb 