Guest Blogs

Roger Marsh: June 1st, 2024

In November of 2018, Jonathan, our youngest son, was diagnosed with a brain tumour, that was later found to be a glioblastoma. It was an awful day, but weirdly, it felt like that through my whole life God had been preparing me for this moment. Let me explain.

Denise Trull: May 1st, 2024

“You have seven children?” Came the incredulous question from the mouth of a perky little twenty something one day at work. “I don’t even want one child. All the worry. All the responsibility. Everything you have to give up. Don’t you ever regret not being able to pursue your own dreams by always having to take care of children? I would whither and die.  I want to LIVE my life!” You would be surprised, at least I was, how often this sad little set of questions is heard.

Ashley McMillan: March 1st, 2024

This room has seen a lot of life in the nearly 11 years of owning this house. It has been the dwelling place of one of my children, one of my sisters, a pregnant momma, a sister again, two little girls we watched over for a while, and family members coming to stay awhile and help me manage the chaos of life during and after Jesse’s brain cancer showed itself.

Melody Lyons: February 1st, 2024

Lent is a time filled with the promise of profound healing that is often missed as we simultaneously cling to disorder. We want to make Lent great. This is the year! And in the great fervor of wanting to do more and be more, we put a coat of paint over the brokenness that God comes to heal. We remember that we are dust, but we forget that we are loved, and that Lent is not about our power, but His.

Maureen Eaton: January 1st, 2024

For almost a decade now, I’ve been choosing a ‘word of the year’–a theme or value to ponder and focus on. Maybe you do this, too? Some of my recent words include:  WELL, REFLECT, TRUST, and last year’s word, LIGHT. 

Patrick O’Hearn: December 1st, 2023

As a four-year-old boy, I remember one of my first encounters with my mortality and with my Heavenly Mother. My mom received dreaded news that her dear friend had aggressive breast cancer and her friend’s days were numbered. Each night my mom and I would light a candle in front of our 16” Marian Statue and we would say a decade of the Rosary for my mom’s friend. Sadly, my mom’s friend passed away, never getting to meet her grandchildren. She was needed more in Heaven than on earth. But God’s ways are not our ways.

Shauna Occhipanti, November 1, 2023

One of the first blessings and commands of God was to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). He established the ideal of family life in this beautiful garden. But then control was grasped for, sin entered and the world we now live in bears the scars of that sin and suffering. Family life, with its blessing and command to be fruitful, also carries with it the bruises of this broken world.

Nicole Berlucchi, October 1, 2023

We often think of the Rosary as a Mary prayer, but the truth is the Rosary is a marriage prayer with a very kind and loving, meddling Mom who wants what is best for us, to live our lives for Christ.

Jen Nelson: September 4, 2023

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. As I turned the aisle in my favorite craft store, there they were. Halloween decorations…in AUGUST! It seems to me the stores are moving the holidays earlier and earlier.  On my drive home, I passed a house down the street that already had up its fifty-foot skeleton and crime scene tape for October 31.”