Something happened inside me when I gave birth to my kids. I became obsessed with keeping peace among them. I wanted to make them stop yelling, stop hitting, stop picking at each other, stop throwing things at one another, stop, stop, stop. But controversy and tension among them happened every day and nothing I did or said took it away.And then, on the radio one day, I heard this quote from Focus on the Family. "If your boys are fighting, they are bonding.

We took down our Christmas decorations December 26, 2016, not because we are grinches, but because we had to be in California to speak at a student event. Unfortunately, we were out of travel-sized shampoo, so I stopped in the drug store. It was decked out already, not with Christmas or New Year's decorations, but with pink and purple hearts. Stores were already getting ready for the consumers to jump on the Love Month bandwagon. 

I used to love Christmas!  Until I didn't.  And there was a reason I stopped loving it...for a season.

Simply put, I experienced real loss.  The kind of loss that sucker-punches you in the lower gut and knocks the breath out of you. The kind of loss that leaves you dazed and confused and wondering if you'll ever come back to a good place again.  And it wasn't just one loss.  It was one after another...and another...and another.  Strung out over twelve years.