It’s been awhile since I have shared some of my favorites, so here’s a list of some of the *many* that have spoken to my heart and captivated my mind recently.

• When you’re a mom waving the white flag on erstwhile dear

The muchy muchness of two knocked me totally on my back last week. I could not seem to refresh, no matter what I did. Conversation at the playground usually does it. Or sunshine. Maybe a podcast and a pastry treat on the way home. But not last week. Their needs seemed to be growing like basil on the windowsill—long, droopy tendrils reaching out to brush you, desperate for water every time I looked over. …

• For all of us who are moms or daughters or moms with daughters: a letter about beauty & love from Ann Voskamp

When we stood in the check-out and you leaned over and said, “What? I can’t hear you?” I could read it right then in your eyes.

Right there by all the glossy magazines screaming at you like a pack of jockeying hawkers.

If you listen long enough to all the loud voices about who you should be, you grow deaf to the beauty of who you are.

• When struggling with big stats or no stats:  “because your story matters more than your stats” by Lisa-Jo
• On writing for passion not fame by Jeff Goins (writer-blogger-coach) and for whose glory? at Allume

[from Allume] I let the accolades of others fill my soul and speak to my worth. I loved the recognition, however small, and craved more. And I slowly took the reigns of my writing career away from God, and placed them firmly in my own hands. … Not consciously, of course, but I did it. Instead of praising God over the growth of a ministry, I stressed over the numbers that still weren’t “enough”. I slowly stopped writing what was on my heart, and started writing what I thought people wanted to hear, what I thought might have a shot at going viral. …

• Lessons on faithfulness now to prepare for future calling by my friend Melissa
• A haunting/encouraging story for this pastor’s wife raising two daughters – how a disillusioned pastor’s daughter found her way back to church at OnFaith

Two recent bloggers I’m following after finding them through Five Minute Friday: Sara at “poets and saints” – particularly love her latest “the fearless list”

I wrote down several ideas of fun and somewhat nerve-racking things I wanted to “try” this summer.  Then I wrote down several more that will be real challenges for me. All of them are scary for me in some way and that’s how the Fearless List was born …

and Kim at “dappled things” 

When I grow up I really want to be a writer, but probably more than that I want to be human, as fully human as it is possible to be. So I practice both these things, writing and being human, on this blog which I call Dappled Things, borrowed from a poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins. Here, I will share some stories, grapple with some problems and bring a little faith encouragement, some knitting and friendship whenever I can.

Happy reading, everyone!