by Emily Wierenga | Jun 7, 2013 | gender roles, God's image, manhood, womanhood
Dear Sons,You are three and a half and one and a half. You’re covered in Popsicles, grape and orange and you’re riding bikes up and down the deck and laughing at the robins hopping across the lawn.You stop and you look at me, my oldest, and you tell me...
by Emily Wierenga | Jun 5, 2013 | Brene Brown, Elizabeth Marshall, imperfect prose on thursdays, link-up, meme, poetry, prose, redemption, vulnerability
Welcome to Imperfect Prose! We are a humble community of people who meet once a week to write about redemption. This week’s host is Elizabeth W. Marshall of WynneGraceAppears.com. We are little communities of me’s, I’s and selves. And sticking our feet into the...
by Emily Wierenga | Jun 4, 2013 | cancer, church, death, faith, peace, psalm 23, shadow, sheep, shepherd, trust
I’m learning how to shepherd. I feel the call, tugging at my hemline.But before you can shepherd, you have to know what it means to be a sheep.Sabbaths are hard for me. Not because I don’t want to rest but because I feel obligated to keep doing, keep...
by Emily Wierenga | Jun 3, 2013 | bible, faith, guilt, kids, mom, motherhood, motivation, parenting, pregnancy, school, summer
So it’s summer.The kids are out of school, or soon they will be, but the housework doesn’t end and their needs don’t either.And maybe you’re pregnant and hormonal like me.Maybe you’re missing your evening glass of wine and your morning...
by Emily Wierenga | May 31, 2013 | children, christian, faith, family, farming, hope, Jesus, motherhood, parenting
Sometimes all you can hear is the quiet and it’s the loudest sound ever.The sound of your heart singing to the One that made you, and you hear it as the boys are running in the soil barefoot, Opa’s tractor in the distance dropping seed into the dirt.You...
by Emily Wierenga | May 29, 2013 | bible, burned, church, control, devotions, evangelicalism, imperfect prose on thursdays, motherhood, prodigal magazine, religion, self, the me generation
…For a while, I became so burned by the church that I decided I would take things into my own hands.I would not get hurt again. I would make the Bible what I wanted it to be and I would apply only the parts of it that I wanted to believe in. I would play god....
by Emily Wierenga | May 27, 2013 | Aiden, disappointment, discouragement, doubt, faith, God, Oklahoma, prayer
The women I was honored to share the stage with in Nashville: Iora (Kirsten Haglund’s mother), Kirsten Haglund (Miss America 2008), and my co-author and friend, Dr. Dena CabreraIt was windy last week, the kind of windy that reminded me of Oklahoma and the nine...
by Emily Wierenga | May 24, 2013 | Abercrombie and Fitch, anorexia, anorexic, CEO, God, identity, love, Mike Jeffries, self-esteem, worth
Dear Mr. Mike Jeffries,You’ve gotten a lot of flack lately. And it’s been well-deserved.But I feel sorry for you.I feel sorry because at the end of the day, you don’t know the hurt you’ve inflicted, because you’ve never been so wounded...
by Emily Wierenga | May 20, 2013 | blog, blogging, brain cancer, death, korea, mum, technology, vacation, virtual community, words, writing
I am sitting across from my blogger friend and her husband, in Tennessee. The walls are cumin yellow and there is a basket of limes and lemons in the center of the dining room table.It’s lush here. It’s been raining and the leaves are the kind of green...
by Emily Wierenga | May 17, 2013 | beauty, book launch, christian, hungry for hope, identity, mom in the mirror, more than a number, perspective, self-worth
Perhaps we’ve got it backwards. Maybe it’s not about size at all, but about strength. Maybe it’s not about smooth skin, but about wrinkles.Maybe instead of touching up our roots, it’s about showing off our silver hairs. Because it’s all about...
