Lori Florida

We ate steak at the fanciest place in town, me and my sister, our husbands, and our parents. Around the table, we joined Mom’s reminiscing. We retold our favorite stories of family vacations and holidays. We revealed some silly childhood secrets. And we listened to Mom’s stories from fifty years she and Dad spent together. One of our favorite stories is of the birthday Mom expected a diamond ring but went home from their swanky dinner with a shiny new set of hot rollers. Whenever Mom tells that story, instead of making fun of Dad for his slow-moving ways, she praises his serious, methodical decision making. She points to it as proof of his dependability. My mom told stories. I told stories. My sister told stories. Even our husbands had memories to share. We retold some of the stories Dad put on paper in his journal for us. The thing we missed most was Dad’s voice in the storytelling. Rather than telling the stories himself, he locked eyes on the teller and responded, “By golly, that ha...

If you start looking for hacks to make your life simpler and happier in the wrong places, you will accomplish the exact opposite of what you hope. You will spin out on solutions to problems you don’t have. You will waste energy trying to feel good about accomplishments that don’t matter to you. You’ll quit because it didn’t work. Shortcuts are good for two things: finishing faster or having more fun.   When we drive from Grand Rapids to Chicago for a fun weekend in the city we usually want to get there as quickly as possible so the fun can begin. Extra time spent wandering through Gary, Indiana in the car isn’t tempting when deep dish pizza and a show are waiting for us in Chicago. We want to shave time off the trip any way we can. We’re looking for a time-saving shortcut, an efficiency hack.  You can only find a shortcut to an actual destination. Until we’ve set a course to Chicago, there’s no way to find a quicker path. Before I know I want to have a garden, it’s silly to fi...

I fight the urge to hyperventilate as we get close to the trailhead. I wish the cause was adrenaline and excitement, but that’s not the problem. Self-recrimination runs wild.  How could I do this to myself again? What was I thinking when I said another yes to this kind of trip? Did I forget that I’m not in my twenties anymore?  I take deep breaths and force a tremulous smile as we disembark from the van and I’m quickly thrust into the role of experienced, calm hiker with our group. I zip my comfortable flip-flops into my pack with my other thirty pounds of essential supplies, slather myself with 100 percent Deet, and lace up my hikers. There’s no turning back now. The only question is how much happiness I’ll be able to wrestle out of the climb. The first section is always the hardest , I tell myself.  Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, taking one more step and then one more. The hot sandy trail leads through streams and slowly slants uphill, becoming ro...

Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver, and the other is gold. Living in the parsonage next door to my church brought with it a fierce temptation to run for cover on Sunday mornings. At war with my longing for good friends was my compulsion to avoid awkward post-service conversations. I loved my friends; it was the process from acquaintance to bosom friend that killed me. Voices in my head told me the happy groups chatting in the foyer didn’t need one more person. But I was in a new place with new people as a mom of two preschoolers. To build a life here, I needed friends. God always knew I needed friends. The proof started before I was even born as my mom discovered one of her Lamaze classmates attended the same church she did. My first friendship was born before I was. Kim and I grew up together. She was the blond to my brunette, the laughter to my serious, and the active to my laid back. She provided an anchor of belonging to my little heart. I can’t remember my ele...

Murphy’s Law would say everything goes wrong as you’re trying to get your family out the door for church. People wake up late, and they wake up grumpy. The baby poops through his diaper onto your pants just as we are walking out the door. Big homework projects due on Monday are suddenly “remembered.” I’ve actually arrived at church with a barefoot kid. More than once. Apparently hopping into the car in a warm attached garage makes my kids forget shoes are necessary in the winter. Sunday mornings are often hard, yet despite all the forces of nature that work against us and the Sunday morning trauma we’ve endured, regular church attendance is a family priority. For us it’s a clear case of the benefits outweighing the costs. In the heat of the moment, when baby poop is running down your leg and the toddler can’t find his shoes, you need to have conviction and purpose to keep going. You need to be convinced that giving your kids a church family is something you can’t afford to ...

We can’t dance. You might even use the word  terrible  if you saw us trying. I’ve always blamed it on a lack of practice rather than a lack of skill. Scott and I were high school sweethearts who attended all our Christian high school’s formal banquets together. I shopped for the perfect dress, stocked up on Aquanet so I could get my hair just right, got my nails done, and called the florist in time to have exactly the boutonniere I wanted. Scott vacuumed his car and gave it a good shine. He rented the shiniest tux he could find and requested a hot pink cummerbund to match my dress. We did everything our public school counterparts did. Except dance. We didn’t miss the dancing; our high school dating lives were full. But then there we were, ten years later, married with little children and suddenly wishing we had better moves to pull out at weddings and events. It looked so fun and effortless to swing, cha-cha, and mambo.  We’re both athletic and smart. We can lear...

One week of every summer deposits our family in the heart of Michigan's up north beauty. My husband speaks for one of the programs at Lake Ann Camp and I spend the week with no agenda, breathing deeply and soaking up beauty. Each day, my walks from our cabin to the dining hall take me past a lone picnic table in an out of the way location. With only the wind in the trees and scampering squirrels to interrupt my thoughts I find my mind wandering over the past 20 years of summertime memories I've collected here. That picnic table played host to a couple serious and emotional conversations with one of our students. The discussion pushed me as I tried to offer equal doses of grace and truth.  I have similar precious memories of a park bench in Brazil, a campground trail in New York, the front seat of our car, the backyard hammock, a conference center back hallway, a paddle boat in the middle of a lake, the darkness of the bunk room after lights out and around campfire ...

We celebrated a birthday at our house today.  This was the 83rd time our family pulled out the birthday candles and hung our Happy Birthday sign. We like to make a big deal about our kids on their special day.  I'm not joking about that number people.  I counted them up and that's how many birthdays we've had here.   I spent the day doing things I always do to fulfill the Florida family birthday traditions.  It's funny how solid these traditions become over time. You do something once or twice and before you know it, it's risen out of the mist as a full-fledged tradition.  You know it has become a tradition when it's absence produces a guttural cry of outrage from your children!  It usually sounds something like this, "But we aaalwwayys do it!!" It's funny how many traditions spring up on their own and become something tangible before you realize they're a thing.  Another curiosity about traditions is how their existence isn't bas...

My husband is a really great guy.  He's washing dishes right now so I can write this for you.  One of the super great things about him is how much he loves babies.   If there were no constraints on our time, money or energy.....we would have our own TV show and way more than 8 kids living in this house.  Did I tell you he loves babies??! When he visits you at the hospital and asks to hold your fresh-from-heaven baby, it's not to be polite or because that's what pastors do when they visit.  He holds that baby because he loves the way it feels in his arms.  And then he comes home and tells me about how great your baby is.  The only thing he loves more than holding  your  babies is holding  OUR  babies. A constant refrain in our home has been, "Let's have one more baby! Our kids are so great, who wouldn't want to do this one more time?"  Depending on my current state of overwhelmedness I would either roll my eyes, lau...

Not many people understand how awesome Michigan is. You might not know that the state nickname is "The Great Lakes State." And if you haven't lived here you might not understand that that means Michigan touches 4 out of 5 of the Great Lakes..... almost half of our counties actually touch one of the Great Lakes too. These lakes aren't really lakes at all, they're inland oceans. They're ringed with miles of beautiful beaches and skyscraping sand dunes. You can't see across them. There are whitecaps to play in but no scary sea creatures or pesky salt water. Between those mammoth wonders and all the little lakes of Michigan, you can't be within our state boundaries without being within 6 miles of a lake. You want coastline? Forget Florida and California, check out Michigan! Michigan boasts 3,126 miles of coastline! If we called the Great Lakes oceans, which they really deserve, that puts Michigan just trailing California in miles of coastline.......