The Pregnant Pastor
It was my third time in the fetal nursery. That’s what I had taken to calling the evaluation room directly across the hallway from Labor and Delivery. Fetal heartbeats echoed […]
A Prayer for the End of Nursing
O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You knew the moment when that sweet baby skin first touched my chest when that sweet little mouth gaped like a […]
The Family of Faith
My son is starting Sunday School. Or, rather, my SON is starting SUNDAY SCHOOL!!!! Somehow, my infant child has transformed himself into a fast talking, faster-running 4-year-old. He is all […]
To Till the Ground
It was Sunday morning, eight weeks from my last menstrual period, three weeks since the first faintly pink positive result appeared, ten days since the darkened line confirmed it, and […]
Stumbling Towards Bethlehem
“While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid […]
A Heart to Hold it All
A couple of weeks after I returned from maternity leave following the birth of my first child, I sat at the lunch buffet with a parishioner. He was older than […]
The Words I Could Not Pray
My son was born on a sunny, beautiful day in September. I went into labor at 4am, and got up to make cookies, because I wanted to pass them out […]
Generation to Generation
I’ve always been a birth geek. I loved the experience of being pregnant with my son. His birth (at home, without drugs; with the baby’s father, two midwives, and my […]
The Kindergartener’s Gospel
I remember well the famous “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten” poster which hung in every one of my elementary school classrooms in Alabama, with its […]
The Snow Day
In the Shriver household, the morning did not start well. I knew it was cold, so as soon as I woke up, I checked my phone. Yep. School’s closed. Today […]
