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# change

January 18, 2017
1

## middle-aged mom life is a real thing

By Carrie Stephens | change, lessons in life, momhood, Motherhood, women | One Comment

When I imagined myself as a mom, it was always as a young mom of very small children. It is a pure shock to me that that stage has ended in many ways for me. I can’t really explain my utter lack of reality, except to say I like babies and wish my kids could be Peter Pan. However, my oldest will be a TEENAGER on Saturday, and I feel like Alice when she went…

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January 5, 2017
0

## the bittersweet road home

By Carrie Stephens | change, choosing, courage, devotional, failure, God, home, spiritual disciplines, Suffering | No Comments

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” -John 4:31-34 I sat in the car watching the scenery of the southwest speed by…

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March 7, 2016
0

## why you need to be loved more than you deserve

By Carrie Stephens | aging, article, change, choosing, friendship, lessons in life | One Comment

Everyone is a big liar about turning forty. It isn’t the new thirty, or even the new thirty-five. It is forty, and it may take me a while to get used to it. I haven’t been able to explain why this particular birthday has been so hard to process. After all, I love my life. I’m more fully myself at 40 than I was at 30. I am in a deliciously happy marriage. I have…

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September 2, 2015
0

## Homelessness, Miracles at Target, & Needing Everything

By Carrie Stephens | a year on the front row, article, change, grace, shame | No Comments

Two Sundays ago, the kids and I hit Target for groceries on the way home from church. These days, Target trips go like this for us: The kids run to the toy section together, with the oldest in charge (we all pretend that will go well). I fill my cart to overflowing capacity with every food item that exists in the western world. Then I walk up and down every aisle to see all the…

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April 10, 2015
0

## when you know exactly what you’re doing

By Carrie Stephens | a year on the front row, article, change, lessons in life, Perfection | No Comments

I had a strange thought yesterday. This one curious thought was born from many smaller thoughts. One of them came in the middle of our new online French lesson. Another popped into my head when my boys collapsed under the weight of laughter that results in writing fictional names on Which Wich order bags (getting the sandwich guy to yell out “Bobby Joe!!” and “Elvis Presley!!” is the end of hilarity to a ten year…

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March 3, 2015
0

## this is the week of all happy things

By Carrie Stephens | article, celebrating, change, lessons in life | One Comment

It’s Tuesday and this is the Week of All Happy Things in our house. Boy 2’s birthday rolls into my birthday which rolls into our wedding anniversary and every year I quiet myself to try to soak in all the love. My whole heart cannot believe I will be thirty-nine this year. All I can say to all the twenty-five year-olds out there is this: I AM STILL YOUR PEOPLE. {Except that the various tubes…

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September 25, 2014
0

## late wine

By Carrie Stephens | article, change, grace | No Comments

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the…

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June 23, 2014
0

## even caged birds can count their blessings

By Carrie Stephens | article, change, choosing, God, hope | No Comments

“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.” – Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.”-Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings For many years,…

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June 13, 2014
0

## shining in the shadow

By Carrie Stephens | article, change, Joy | No Comments

“Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”-Psalm 91:1 I stood in my kitchen and living room last Friday, mentally choosing new colors for all the surfaces in my house. Because that’s what we do here in the first world, when our souls yearn for change, for freedom, for new things from God: we rearrange our lives, reschedule our time, and repaint our walls. We…

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March 31, 2014
0

## the most important question: a lesson from the Dollhouse family

By Carrie Stephens | a year on the front row, article, change, forgiveness, love, Suffering | No Comments

Everything is going to be okay. Really. I sat on the shaggy brown rug of my daughter’s room playing dollhouse with her. “You set up the bedrooms and I’ll do the bathrooms,” she instructed me. Five year old girls are very organized and a little bossy to boot. We made up all kinds of stories. Brother Johnny Dollhouse broke his leg and had to be rushed to Little People Princess Castle Hospital for a cast….

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