By Cindy Koch –
I’m guilty of it lately. A quick snapshot of the crusty dishes from last night, towering dangerously in the sink. An angry post about the reign of laundry that seeks to conquer the entire house. Tears caught on camera—my children’s or my own—when nothing has happened as it should. This is real. This is life. This is not perfect.
By Cindy Koch –
She took a deep breath and took hold of the aged shopping cart handle. One arm struggled to bend her daughter’s leg, while the other arm hoisted the baby awkwardly above the metal basket. Anchoring one foot behind the closest wheel to keep the cart from rolling away, she wiggled the uncooperative little girl into the standard retail prison chair, complete with plastic shackles. Realizing that all tools of bribery were missing from her purse, mom gripped the cart, focused down the first aisle, and prepared for the mad dash through the grocery store to beat a toddler’s ticking patience.
By Cindy Koch –
It was early in the morning; the pain was still dull and distant. I looked up at a quiet, blank celling considering the severity of this discomfort, but I knew it had only begun. Taking one last look around the dark and familiar room, I soaked in a moment of rest before it started up again. Inhale… exhale… Ouch. That tiny, soft sting took my breath away one more time. I gasped for a little more air as I felt something like a white-hot rock pressing harder and harder into my lower abdomen. Only two minutes had gone by. It was time to do something about this.
By Cindy Koch –
Sugar, spice, and everything nice—what are little girls made of? As a mother to four little girls, I have undoubtedly asked this question since the day they were born. Parents are created to encourage and teach their children to the best of their ability. And for years I have asked this question of each daughter: Who is she? Who will she become? What makes this little person?
By Cindy Koch –
I’m ashamed for her. I mean, there she is, acting like a fool again. She had every chance to turn her life around. Since her new life, she now knows what God really wants for her. She was almost over the mountain of her painful past. She was on her way out of the suffering. But once again, she passed up the good decisions and chose the ones that would lead her down the harder path.
By Cindy Koch –
I wonder. I worry. I have a million choices and decisions, but what if I make the wrong one? Am I really serving God? Maybe I am serving myself. Is my failure an indication that my faith isn’t strong enough? Am I in danger of losing the grace, mercy, and love of Christ?
By Cindy Koch –
I’ve always had a hard time with other moms. I am a mom. I’ve known many moms throughout my life. But if you are familiar with friendship among women, you know what I mean. Inevitably, tension builds as moms get to know each other.
By Cindy Koch –
In darkness, her eyelashes clumped together from new, stinging tears. Shivers prickled behind her ears. Her stomach twisted from disgust. She could feel the heavy breath of the man hiding next to her. But she couldn’t look at him. She cringed at every distressed sigh she heard from him. Silent, agonizing crouching in the shadows was all she could remember now.
By Cindy Koch –
If I could only see a word. Beginning as a bubble somewhere deep inside, filling with meaning and pictures and referents as it rises to the mind. Floating gently or thrashing turbulently behind the eyes, waiting to be released. Finally, the mouth opens, the fingers twitch. Blinding rays from the external exposure reach inside for just a second. Drawn to the fresh air of freedom, a word finds her flight.
By Cindy Koch –
No one likes to talk about it. I guess we risk sounding a little crazy or paranoid. The whispers in the shadows, the taunting voices heard only in our heads; but by now, we have learned to ignore the queasy prickles when he is near. Hidden in the chaos of our ordinary life, this powerful enemy fights to remain invisible. His strength is confusion. His weapon is doubt. His gift is shame. But his steps are silent, and we are never quite sure where he will show up next.
By Cindy Koch –
Both Adam and his wife shudder in fear. They have both eaten the forbidden fruit now. The first bite was great, but the bitter aftertaste was unlike anything they ever had. Cowering deep in the bushes they feel nauseous from embarrassment and shame. Something is terribly different and dreadfully wrong. Instead of running into the arms of their protective Creator, all they want to do was scamper away. Far, far away. Unexpectedly, this taste of knowledge and freedom was very bad.
By Cindy Koch –
The boy held tightly to his father’s hand as the noise increased. Scared, he looked up past the tangled beard above into those fiery eyes of which he was already afraid. That face he saw above was frozen and hot, launching an invisible attack across the counter. The receiving enemy’s eyes darted to the right and left, unsure of how to escape. This young man on the other side of the counter nervously shifted his weight while feeling around blindly for something on which to hold on. This conversation was going very badly, and they all knew it.
By Cindy Koch –
More than three decades have passed. I know this only because the marks are scratched into the wall next to where I try to sleep. Sometimes I stare at those crooked lines, losing myself in the valleys of shadows and dust trapped in those tiny crevices. Sometimes I stay up too late counting each slash, remembering, shuddering as the number keeps growing. On the blackest nights, that haunting record on the wall fades into the empty deep. I strain to see a beginning, even an end, but the darkness is too much.
By Cindy Koch –
Too often, I see that look in a mother’s eye. Too often, I hear that exhausted sigh when no one else is listening. Too often, I feel that phony smile twist up my own lips, hiding the chaos inside. As any mother will confide, this job is much harder than it looks.
By Cindy Koch –
Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the market she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy street she cries out; at the entrance to the city gates she speaks; How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? (Proverbs 1:20-22)
Men, women, and children everywhere ignore her call. As long as she has breath, Wisdom will speak loudly and boldly, but those who have ears still cannot hear. Those who have eyes still cannot see. Wisdom speaks in proverbs, parables and riddles. And the simple continue to wander right past her words of life.
By Cindy Koch –
Everyone can read, but does everyone understand? We see it every day. Person after person reads these same words, but each believes they mean something totally different. Bible-believing Christians faithfully arm themselves with beautiful words of Scripture but end up fighting on opposite sides of the spectrum. How does this happen? Is there a single right way to read the Bible? Or must we accept every interpretation as true? Is there a better way to read the Words? Before we flip open this book, a good reader of the Bible considers a few of these questions.
By Cindy Koch –
Little hands entwine. Circles of children begin to spin. Laughs and giggles, faster and faster. Bounce, bound, bump, bob. They all fall down.
Ring around the Rosie is a classic childhood game. Generations of our children have chanted this simple rhyme. We have spun together, we have fallen together, and we have gotten up to play just one more time.
By Cindy Koch –
If you are anything like me, you care what happens to your children. If you are anything like me, you would go to insane lengths to care, protect, educate, and empower your children. If you are anything like me, you fret and worry if you are doing the right things to raise your children. If you are anything like me, you have been detoured down a complicated road of insanity, for the sake of your children.
By Cindy Koch –
We sit here today in a silent conversation. I type out the annoying voice in the back of my brain onto a white screen, and soon you will be reading these words in between the pretty pictures. I may be sitting outside of a quiet coffee shop my local strip mall, or I could be hiding from the chaos (called bedtime) in my backyard under the orange summer sunset. You could be reading this on your phone while waiting in the air-conditioned minivan, or you could be contemplating at your comfy familiar desk with a warm cup of coffee in hand. We have a conversation, you and I, but such a strange one.
By Cindy Koch –
The clouds hung low this last Sunday morning. Already shivering as I stepped outside, I called back to the hustling brood to grab their jackets before we piled in the car. Damp palm trees and lonely puddles hinted that it was about to rain, but only a gray mist colored our morning drive to church. The children and I traveled together in unusual silence, taking in the gloom.
