Category Archives: Writer

Have Compassion

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Daniel, my child in Burkina Faso

For the past week I followed the Compassion bloggers on their trip to Guatemala. Their messages, beautiful and haunting about children and their families whose home life forces us Americans to rename our poverty, made my body gush tears, wrung me out, stripped me apart and made me think about what part I play in ending this poverty. Continue reading →

The Loving Husband

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Me & Flynn on our anniversary, 8/8/10

A few years ago I saw a cartoon that showed a husband coming home from work to a house in complete disarray from garbage strewn on the front lawn with kids in the mud in their pajamas to toys, spills, a loud TV, an open refrigerator and a dog missing in the house. He walked past more mess and piles of clothes to find his wife, a stay-at-home mom, lounging in her pajamas reading. He asked her what happened. She replied, “‘You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?’ ‘Yes,’ was his incredulous reply. She answered, ‘Well, today I didn’t do it.’” Her husband immediately knew the importance of what a stay-at-home does all day and what happens when one whose house is orderly doesn’t do her job. Though my house wasn’t this chaotic before I took my blogging break, some of my job didn’t get done and Flynn, my husband, witnessed this and had my back. Continue reading →

Guiding Through Guideposts

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I’ve got good news! My Facebook friends may already know, but I want my WordPress readers to know that I have been selected as a writer for the 2011 Guideposts devotional for new moms. Outside of newspapers and magazines (and one little indie that published one of my poems), this is my first time being published in a book. I will write about 20 short pieces about my first year as a mom to encourage new moms. The stories will be personal. They may be quirky. I hope they are revelatory. I pray they change the pace for a mom having a frustrating, clueless, hectic or simply a “hands up” day. To craft these stories will take some time to make my September 1 deadline so I’ll be taking a break from blogging for the month of July.

I’ve been thinking for a month or so about taking a one-month break from blogging, and I thought July would be that month, but I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t yet gotten the Guideposts position, and I hadn’t told my husband of my possible intentions, but this morning he suggested that I “take off from blogging for a month, the month of July.” I knew then that my thinking was more than just thinking but it was God telling me to take a break.

On Wednesday I’ll sign off for a month, but I’ll see you again in August.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith