Author Archives: Shannon


About Shannon

Alaskan homeschooling mama of eight sweet kids. Loves Jesus, writing, coffee, Dickens, and snapping a kitchen towel at my husband when he's not looking.

the right door: finding answers by focusing on the next right thing

Posted on by March 7, 2024

In my defense, I was distracted, and I’ve only been to the post office a handful of times in the last couple of years.

So I pulled in the parking spot – it was after hours, there were only a few people there – and got out of the car. Turned to the right, walked down the sidewalk, tried the door. It was locked.

the right door: finding answers by focusing on the next right thing

Well. It was after hours. But there was a thought in the back of my head that faintly remembered using those doors in the evening.

No matter – I walked back down the sidewalk, past my car, up to the main doors and went in. Success. Got the mail and went back to the set of main doors. Walked past the entrance door, went out the exit door, and again, something niggled in my mind.

Out on the sidewalk as I approached my car, I saw someone go in the same set of doors I’d tried just a minute earlier – and I realized I had tried the exit door, but this lady was going in the entrance door. Whoops.

It’s not just me, though; I outed Vince on social media last week for doing something similar. He dropped the girls and I off at the quilt store, and when we were done we all headed to the thrift store, where he dropped us off again. But before leaving to do his errands, he dropped off all our donations – plus the entire bag of new fabric and supplies we had just purchased.

(He went back and retrieved the items the next morning, and brought me an apple fritter to round out his apologies).

The next day I was cleaning the kitchen – nothing major, just the little, neglected areas I could see when I stopped long enough to notice them. Coffee spots on the wall behind the stove, the dirty kitchen window, and the grubby smudges on the refrigerator door where dirty hands helped themselves to what was inside.

The microwave vents were furry with grime so I pulled them off the microwave and set a pot of water on the stove to boil. Now this, friends, is a trick I know; I learned it when we were selling our old house. You bring the water to a boil, set the vent in the water, throw in a handful of baking soda, and open a window, because it will probably stink. The baking soda and water foam all the grime off the vent, and the result is magic.

By the time they were done, my black tank top was smeared with baking soda and kitchen grime and I went upstairs to change. The sun streamed in our bedroom, throwing light and color through the glass doorknobs on the closet.

I opened the door to grab a new shirt – but then closed it and looked at the light again. Moved the door back and forth, watching the color play through the glass. I had almost ignored it in my rush and distraction.

How often does He put light, color, and joy in our path, but we miss it? There are so many distractions and needs. How do we focus on what He wants us to see?

We’ve been trying to wean Kav, and even though this is our sixth rodeo and we should know what we’re doing by now, it feels harder than every other time.

We’re trying to prepare a kid to launch in a few years, and he wants almost nothing to do with moving forward.

We’re trying to release a book next month, but our distributor’s website has been glitchier than Biden’s earpiece, and it looks like we’ll have to delay the launch date.

And I don’t have any easy answers for any of those situations. I haven’t discovered any magical tricks to solve them.

(I do have an idea or two about Biden…but I digress.)

I tend to focus on the big thing ahead and forget to look at the small step right in front of me. I focus on checking the mail, and miss the correct door to getting in the post office.

In my attempts to wean little Kav, I’ve been trying to get a little space from him. But he cries. I try to get work done upstairs, and he cries. He tries to come upstairs when I’m writing, and Vin intercepts him, and he cries.

Let him come upstairs, the Lord says, so I do and he plays for a while and then wants to nurse, but I can redirect him to some toys.

I don’t have to wean him completely today. I just need to try to nurse him less right now, this afternoon.

At church, I’m sitting next to our boy who has taken more steps backward than forward lately. He is silent and I am singing. And my voice only carries only so far, but I am praying the words penetrate deep inside him. I don’t have to send a fifteen-year-old with special needs out into the world today; I just need to love him as he navigates the consequences of his choices today.

At home, on the phone, I am not able to get through to a real person to fix this website issue. So we call their parent company and find a real person, who listens and takes all my information and complaints and questions. And I don’t know if my voice will carry very far there, either – but it’s all I know to do right now.  

I’ve been distracted by the big need to wean the toddler, to launch the book and the young adult, and I’ve missed the small answers that are often right in front of me as I’m rushing along.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 

– Philippians 3:12-14, ESV

I don’t have to fix everything, or clean everything, or know everything. (And friend, neither do you.) I just need to do the things I can see – and to do that in a wiser fashion, I need to slow down and ask God to give me vision to focus on the right things.

These small steps of obedience are like headlights on a dark road. We can trust that the small space of light we can see will be enough to get us where we need to go.

Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

– Philippians 3:15-16, ESV

How often does He have an answer for us but we are distracted with the speed of our own thoughts, going out of our way to miss the easier solution that He put right in front of us?

So many times, I have sat at this desk feeling like I don’t have enough in me for the next post, or the next chapter, or the next book. Some days it feels like we don’t have enough for the next day. We have just enough for this moment. We don’t have meals, we just have little ingredients, like manna. But then we gather our manna in all of those moments, and eventually it starts to sort itself out into something of real substance.

And this is the exciting part, because I know He’s done this before. I have seen the fishes and loaves multiplied; I’ve watched the water turn into wine.

I’ve seen the prodigal son return.

I know the miracles God wrings from a headlight that reaches just far enough ahead, and inadequate little words on paper, and the voice that carries just a little way, when maybe no one else can hear it.

Because God hears it. And He knows how to multiply our efforts.

Back downstairs, I wiped down the glass pasta jars and Kav was right there at my pantleg, reaching up and asking for a noodle. I pulled a skinny, delicate piece of angel hair out and gave it to him, and as he took it, it immediately broke.

But he didn’t cry. He might’ve, if he’d been focusing on things the way I have been lately. But he didn’t.

Instead, he held up both pieces.

“Two!” he yelled, in triumph.

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abide: rest in the running

Posted on by January 6, 2026

February started all silver and white that morning. Ten degrees, and all the chimneys across the valley were slowly puffing their smoke toward the west while we drank our morning coffee.

I was on the couch next to Vince, listening to him try to get through to customer service as he took care of some bills. They transferred him to a “press 1 for this, press 2 for that” menu and he was caught in a loop — no matter what he pressed, it sent him back to the same place.

Somehow he found another route that asked him to speak instead of enter his request, and after saying “CUSTOMER SERVICE” first in a normal voice and then again, just for fun, like P.T. Barnum – both of which were ineffective – he started in on a particular children’s worship song that gave me a sudden desire to stab him with a pen.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just trying to get through this.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said, “but if you keep singing that, you won’t make it.”

So began Monday.

abide: rest in the running

And here’s a good word for those of us in the middle of a rough day – if we are walking through hardship or conflict, or willful misunderstanding, or hope deferred, or disaster and heartache, or we’re just simply irritated by loved ones before our coffee has kicked in:

Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love,
For His wondrous works to the children of man.
For He satisfies the longing soul,
And the hungry soul He fills with good things.

– Psalm 107:8-9

No matter what it looks like, He’s still doing. He is still satisfying the longing soul. He is still filling the hungry soul with good things. He is still doing wondrous works for His people.

On one of those rough days, I spent hours underneath a sick preschooler and his 103 temperature. He puked all over my bed before his fever finally broke, and once we got it cleaned up, we thought we were in the clear. But no, my friends, we were not in the clear, because an hour later he went for it again, violently shoving away the bucket I held for him, somehow managing to puke all over himself and the only part of the couch that was not already covered in towels.

Did I mention that day started with the geriatric cat vomiting into my hands as I tried to protect a different surface? No? Well, that happened, too. So gross.

That day, I also got to schedule fun appointments like a cat scan and physicals (because Dorothy, we’re not in our thirties anymore) and I was looking at paperwork for a neurologist that I had already decided to put off until the following morning. Ain’t nobody got time for that on a day like this one.

Some days we’re just out of words. We’re praying without ceasing and loving the hurting and watching for good news because we know it’s here – even in sickness, even in grief, even when we know we’re walking into pain because He calls us off the couch and out of our comfort zone and into the mess. He is unchanging. He’s still the Good News, and He’s still right here with us.

It is okay to pray without words because He promises that He has words for us.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

 – Romans 8:26-27

If it comes down to us having to pray with the right words, then we’ve made it about what we can fix or do or achieve, instead of what He does for us and how much we need Him. And if it’s about what we do for ourselves, then we get the glory instead of Him – and He knows we can’t handle the weight of that.

Some days we end strong. But at the end of other days I am asking God, Did I do enough?

He responds, Is it about you doing enough, or is it about what I’m doing?

And He reminds me that trusting Him is also something we do.

At the end of the day, we can stop our striving and fretting. At the end of the week, we can let go of the things that did not get done. Write them down if you need to, and let go of them for the night. God is on the night shift, not sleeping, always working the weekends, ever on our side, watching over all the details that are trying to keep us from peace and joy. Rest makes for a more productive tomorrow. 

Even when all the intangibles look unfinished and not progressing, trusting Him while abiding does a great work – and it positions us for breakthrough, more than any doing or striving ever will.

How can we know we’re getting somewhere when we feel like we’re running in place? And, if we are getting somewhere, how do we know we’re going in the right direction?

abide: rest in the running

We abide. Because God knows we’re headed to a beautiful place, and He has wisdom for us every step of the way.

No more settling for less because we’re fighting fear and anxiety of the unknown, and no more striving for control. Because control is not power – surrender and faith are. And He brings those as we abide.

We learn that we’re stronger when we know how weak we are without Him. We go farther by slowing down in strategic, deliberate ways. We learn to breathe when we feel like we’re drowning. And we stop getting ourselves into hot water, and we create a culture of rest and refilling, instead.

We rest in the running when we prioritize His presence over our production…and somehow we find that the fruit we bear is bigger and healthier as a result.

This is an excerpt from volume 1 of ABIDE. Need a break from spinning your wheels? The ABIDE series is part devotional, part collective memoir, part coffee table book, 100% encouragement and refilling. All six books are available here.

the challenge: working through it together

Posted on by February 13, 2023

Every year we choose new books to read (do you do this, too?), but last year we started something different – we did a reading challenge. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?

But it’s not, really. Just search the internet and you’ll find a hundred variations. Iree joined us and the three of us teamed up together to read 104 books. Two books per week seems like a lot, but between all of us, it seemed doable.

But we quickly discovered that it wasn’t, quite.

the challenge: working through it together

It wasn’t the number of books, but the categories that threw us. And I understand that the point of a challenge is to, well, challenge you, but there was only one slot for “a book you have no interest in” and I own too many books that I actually want to read to bother digging around with so many categories that were on there that I don’t.

So, taking a languid approach to it, we crossed the boring/inapplicable categories off as we went and replaced them with creative ones that were less boring (cough) more to our taste. Because seriously, I value theology and Christian living, but there were SO MANY of them on there, and absolutely nothing on writing, crafts, psychology, ancient history, criminology, or any of the other weird stuff we also really like.

And by the end of the year our list was a mess, but it was much more fun, and yes – we were still challenged.

This year we did it again, but started off with a clean list. We made sure the categories were both realistic and interesting right off the bat. We crowded around the kitchen island, just throwing ideas out there.

A book written by someone you know. A book with a character you’d want to be friends with. A book about a disaster. A book about personal growth. A book Shannon quoted in one of her books. A book of 800 pages or more. A memoir or autobiography. A book by Dickens.

“A book on Napoleonic history,” Vin suggested.

“Uhh…” Iree and I looked at each other.

“Only if you’re going to read it,” she said. (He said he would.)

Cham came in and we asked her for suggestions. And if you don’t know her, you will after hearing her ideas:

“A book about biology…a book on dissecting. Ohh! A book on cadavers!”

Yeah. Well…we only added one of those ideas; I’ll let you guess which.

There’s so much that we don’t know. We’ll read hundreds, thousands, of pages this year, and aside from the people we hang out with and the time we spend in prayer, very few things will influence our growth like these pages. So it’s important to choose good ones, and to enjoy the time spent with them.

I’m not kidding myself; I know I won’t remember most of what I read. I won’t like or agree with everything that I read. But even without remembering all the facts and storylines and characters and historical figures, we will be changed. The pages will leave an impression that wasn’t there last year.

Last year I started reading Plutarch’s Lives alongside Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Several months in, I realized my mistake. I thought they would reinforce each other, but usually I just get more confused as I try to untangle them from each other every week.

But I am learning.

I don’t remember all the individual lives in Plutarch, and I couldn’t tell you the exact timeline in Gibbon. But what I can tell you is an impression of these cultures and times. I can tell you that there were leaders who had wisdom for the ages, including ours. And there were also leaders who were so abhorrent in their depravity and disregard for the lives of others that the horrors they committed are hard to believe.

But they are in the history books. We generally don’t argue with them.

So, quick question, because I have to go there – why do people disbelieve or disregard the horrors we hear about today? Why are we so quick to mock and accuse people of being conspiracy theorists when they share information about celebrities and politicians doing abhorrent things?

Is it because they’re not in the history books yet? Is it because we have no interest in those categories?

Is it because those topics challenge us too much?

Or is it because we are their contemporaries, and their proximity to our own lives makes us uncomfortable? Because if these things are happening in the world we live in (and they are – it takes very little research to discover it, though you’ll have to use a search engine that doesn’t censor to do it, and you absolutely should not do so without being prayed up), then either a) we might be somewhat responsible that they exist, or b) we might need to do something about it so they no longer exist.

And those aren’t good, easy, fun options. It’s much more comfortable to shoot the messenger, lump it all as conspiracy theory and applaud the censorship that silences them, and move along with our noses heads held high.

I’ve heard some people disavow information simply because it didn’t match their personal experience. And I’m grateful they haven’t personally experienced anything that horrific, but our personal experiences do not define or limit the reality of other people experiences. It is arrogant, narcissistic, and foolishly ignorant to act like it does.

We still have so much to learn.

Hear me, friend: Children chained to beds and starved was not in my personal experience until we got involved in adoption.

Children who weighed 24 pounds at age four were not in my personal experience until we started our adoption paperwork. We converted kilos to pounds in astonishment; it had to be a miscalculation. But it wasn’t.

Children who were so neglected that they were only nine pounds at nine years old were not in our personal experience until we got involved with the people who were adopting them.

Our lack of personal experience did not prevent their existence or the abuse. It only proved our ignorance.

Our personal experience is not the epitome of reality. It is arrogant to assume that our x amount of years in any field (professional, personal, or otherwise) qualifies us to deny the reality of someone else’s differing experience, especially when it comes in the form of testimony with evidence and witnesses.

Just because something is so devastating that it is hard to believe, doesn’t mean it isn’t actually true.

And just because you don’t find information about fraud, horrific child abuse, or other crimes perpetrated by the elite on mainstream media (which no longer even attempts to hide how blatant their censorship is) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means they want us to think it doesn’t…and that should lead us to some very important questions about what they have to lose.

There are many things that are hard to believe, but are nevertheless reality, regardless of how uncomfortable they make us feel, or how much we hate those categories.

And coming to understand that – and working through it together, with respect and love – may be the real challenge we all go through this year.