game night

Sixteen Tears

| Laura Lee Bonde

You haven’t heard much from me lately because I’ve been giving all my attention to my kids the past few days to prepare for Carolyn’s sixteenth birthday and just “be there” for her, which was much needed.

For the past two years, Carolyn’s thrown a birthday party, and for the past two years, no one from school has shown up, and when your young (or old), that tends to wear on you.

Her party was for two of clock in the afternoon until whenever. She’d hoped to hang out, play basketball and football, play games, and sit around the fire pit with her friends. Well, you can imagine her disappointment. Continue reading →

Hangout With Laughter

| Laura Lee Bonde

Over the years, I’ve learned how healing it was for me and the kids to sit around and play games together: we’d laugh at each other; poke fun; find out more about each other; etc., so I always want to share this healing experience with others: young and old, and last night, I was able to do just that. Continue reading →

Healing Truth

| Laura Lee Bonde

As many of you know, yesterday was Katie’s birthday, and I was broke, but I “knew” money wasn’t important in celebrating her, so I had no doubts we would all have fun together, and I had been looking forward to giving her a very special card.

Back in March, I had found this beautiful card with all these red tulips surrounding a beautiful white one. Tulips are my very favorite flower, so this card caught my eye, and having the white tulip amidst the red ones was the picture of me standing in the blood of Jesus, purified, redeemed, restored, so I bought the card to use for my own.

Shortly after, I was scheduled to dance at Beach Chapel for Easter. All my kids went, and I was so excited to dance with God in their presence (for the very first time). After the service, I was going to write about the awe of it all in my special tulip card to remember forever. Well, after the service, all of that changed. Continue reading →