The other day, a friend who’s about to have her first baby passed me a giant, Costco-sized can of worms and invited me to open it. “What do you think about pacifiers?” she asked. When it comes to infant care practices, I’m about as natural as you can get. I have homebirths, cue-feed, co-sleep, and…
Category Archives: Gathering At the Well
A Tale of Two Daughters, or Do What You’re Told First
Saturday: I had bitten off more than I could chew, as usual. My husband was going to a men’s Bible study in the morning and then staying at the host’s house to spend the day in a rented cherry picker taking down a tree in the front yard. I was supposed to bring pizza over…
Life After Death
I woke up early on Sunday morning, my eyes still swollen with the tears from the middle of the night before, my husband’s words of consolation still echoing in my ears… “We lost a baby, my love. Our lives will never be the same.” I miscarried our fifth baby on March 12. For two weeks,…
Humbled and Hungry
I took all five children to prayer meeting by myself. At 9:30 P.M., on the way home, while I talked on my cell phone to my husband still working at his office, the baby started crying and then screaming about a diaper newly wet, and the two-year-old began to sob because she was afraid of…
Abiding Under the Shadow of the Almighty
I fully intended for this post to be about something different. After trying in vain with this large weight on my heart about an unrelated topic, I finally gave up. See, as of yesterday the Lord drastically changed my circumstances, removing any notions of control I thought I’d had. Awaiting our eighth child, fifth reversal…
The Fruit of our Trials
We were driving home late last night from a visit to Grandpa and Grandma’s house. We stopped at a stop light, and I saw her. There she was, through the window of the restaurant on the corner–a young mom, standing next to the table instead of sitting, rocking and swaying with her tiny baby, attempting…
Fear and Grace
Six years ago I nearly died of pneumonia. It is something I have looked back on ever after to help me understand strength in the face of trials. Not my own strength. God’s. It wasn’t just that He gave the doctors wisdom, or that He enabled me to get the right antibiotics, or even that…
Jen Shepherd 
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