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When Storms Come
When the school year finally rang its last bell, I felt confident the summer would bring lots of sunshine, happiness, and much-needed rest. Instead, we got rain—lots and lots of rain. Thirty-five trillion gallons of rain fell (by May), and water soon flooded parts of North Texas. Many folks lost their homes, their livelihood. Perhaps the sun will come out tomorrow? The rain eventually stopped, but my mood didn’t change. I noticed the political tornadoes forming all over the news and social media. Along with these types of violent twisters came unkind words, hurt feelings, and broken friendships. The destruction continues, and it still moves chaotically all over…
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Responding To and Remembering – #prayfororlando
Our hearts are stirred and broken over the mass shooting in Orlando Sunday – the deadliest mass shooting in US history which left 49 dead and 53 injured. How do you compute this? How do you make sense of it? What do you do with all the questions, the feelings of violation, the abruptness of an act of terror and the personal fear that ensues? These questions have surfaced before in the Columbine shooting, 911, Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Boston Marathon attack, at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, in San Bernadino and will likely surface again. After I turned on my phone to check the weather Sunday morning…
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Helping Kids Process Traumatic Events
Living in an information saturated world means we often get bombarded with news events. I recall crying when I read the news on Sandy Hook and feeling sick to my stomach over the events in Paris. And now, the latest terrorism in Orlando leaves us all stunned—CNN is calling it the “deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.” How do we respond to such events? And, how do we help our children process difficult news when we struggle to make sense of it ourselves? Be careful of media exposure—Whenever possible, avoid letting children under 5 view any traumatic news. Many psychologists also suggest that children between the age of 6–11 should…
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A Letter to Orlando
My phone buzzed with the breaking headlines from Fox News, “Deadliest mass shooting in American history… It could take several days to identify all of the victims.” I sighed in disbelief as my husband explained, “There’s been another shooting, this time at a nightclub in Orlando.” I had a different blog post written and scheduled for today, but last night I deleted it from the queue. Another time perhaps, but not today. Today we must not talk politics, or point fingers, or have arguments, or agendas. Today we must simply mourn. What happened yesterday could have occurred anywhere…in my town, in a nearby school, in a local theater, even in…
