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The Truth About Words and Babies

I remember the day I said it, “I don’t want her life! She’s a slave to her husband. A slave to everyone. I’ll never live like my grandma!” I was sixteen years old, jetting around in my little, ice-blue Toyota Celica with a sunroof that blew my red hair around. Listening to Journey and Bon Jovi and Livin’ On A Prayer. And living for me. Only me. Just me. I read historical romance novels until 2 a.m., “torch books” my dad called them. Got mostly A’s in school without much studying, cruised with my girlfriends on Friday and Saturday nights in […]

By Paula May 28, 2014

The Outside of a Horse

I never expected to ride again. Not like this with my husband beside me on a horse I love. Scott on a horse we both love. It just seemed a thing of the past, something God had taken away from us. When Soda Pop died, I thought it was done. I couldn’t imagine riding another horse after I lost him. I haven’t ridden in the mountains since. I’ve hardly ridden at all. And the babies kept coming. You change diapers for twenty-three years, certain you were made for it. Certain God planned this life for you, and will give you […]

By Paula May 20, 2014

You Can’t Make Old Friends

Two men who lived in cowboy boots. Chewed tobacco. Talked sweet to their horses. From the time I was a kid, they hunted bucks together in the high country. Climbed onto their horses, tied their guns down, and rode deep into the mountains. They fished side by side at mountain lakes. Lakes blue and deep and cold as the snow that fills them when summer brings new life. After a long, hard winter when the snow buckles pine trees, and puts the bears to sleep. That long, hard winter that’s hard on everything. These two men care about each other– […]

By Paula May 14, 2014

Hello Motherhood!

Hello Motherhood! Two decades ago you labored into my life turning this night person into a morning person in the blink of a sleepy eye. Snoozing through sunrise became a thing of the past, along with about everything else indulgent in my life. Before you, I spent an hour curling my hair most mornings. After you, a ponytail became my best friend. I used to dress up and go out on the town. Now I dress down and go barefoot around the house. I’ve learned to cook, clean, and change a diaper with a baby on my hip. Some women […]

By Paula May 8, 2014

Foolish Things

Can anything good come out of Yuba City? Ask the owners of California Chrome, the three-year-old colt that just won the Kentucky Derby. It’s a Cinderella story covered in a blanket of Kentucky roses. Two hard working couples, the Martins from Yuba City, California and the Coburns from Topaz Lake, Nevada with a dream to own a racehorse. They bought an $8,000 dollar mare and paid $2,500 dollars to breed her to an unknown stallion. Then they hired a seventy-seven-year-old small-time trainer, Art Sherman, now the oldest trainer to ever win the derby, and the rest is horse racing history. […]

By Paula May 6, 2014

Hope In His Word

I didn’t realize how much my Bible meant to me until the day I ran out the door with two little boys and my Bible in my arms with fire alarms blaring. A power surge hit our house, blowing up appliances, making the TV smoke, crackling though our house like an electrical snake. I thought the house would burn down. In a split second, I grabbed what I loved most: my boys and my Bible, and raced to my car. Why the car? I don’t know. But I found myself shaking beside our old Suburban in the driveway, holding a […]

By Paula May 1, 2014

He is Faithful in the Fog

Some days it’s all fog. When you find that lump and the fear rolls in and you think, I don’t have the money for this. The time for this. The strength for this. Cancer costs too much. And you realize melanoma cost you not only a chunk of your flesh, but a chunk of your faith. Because you stumbled through it in a fog, some moments feeling like a woman without God. Because God didn’t just take it away. Because He kept you going to that skin doctor, and that skin doctor kept saying you were fine, but you knew that […]

By Paula April 24, 2014