The Spaces that Hold Our Gardens and Barbs

July 27, 2015.Reading time 8 minutes.

This post is part of the #wholemama summer series started by blogger Esther Emery. Last week’s theme was SPACE. Even though I didn’t write in time to add it to the Tuesday link-up, there are posts focusing on “space” from 20 amazing women on Esther’s website. IN MEMORY OF SOMEONE WE LOVED By Amanda Cleary Eastep There was […]

How to Pray Like a Refugee

July 16, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep From out of the desert of Africa, my daughter brings home the custom of praying with your eyes open and your hands held out, palms up, as if you are just that expectant, that trusting, that bold. The first evening she is back at our house church after five months of perspective […]

Quiet Riot

June 30, 2015.Reading time 6 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep 1. Nearly every day for 15 years I have heard my son’s voice until the judge decides my son will live with his father while his two sisters and I will move out of the house, but I leave most of the children’s books because it upsets him to see me pack […]

When Your Power Ain’t So Super, Woman

June 23, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep He wants me to wear a cape to the grocery store. “I don’t have a cape, Sweetie.” My four year old streaks out of the kitchen, the red cape I sewed flying out behind him. My next door neighbor regularly ridicules me. How the hell can I let my son run […]

Half of a #WholeMama? The weird transition from Mommy to Mother

June 16, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep My 18-year-old and I lay in the grass taking Instagram selfies (which I liken to showing vacation “slides” to the entire world). This youngest daughter returned to my arms recently after five months away, two of those in N. Africa. She wanted to show off her armpit hair, which is not nearly […]

Because Your Good Friends Will Follow You Out the Window

June 7, 2015.Reading time 5 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep One after the other, the six of us crawl out my friend’s apartment bedroom window and onto the flat, tar paper roof of Wilma’s Cafe where the farmers gather on Saturday mornings to drink coffee and eat Western omelets after milking or plowing or planting, depending on the season. To me […]

Moving into Your Discomfort: When you are asking What’s Next?

May 26, 2015.Reading time 7 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep What’s next? It’s a year of transition for my family. High school and college graduations, a wedding, and a potential job change. And, for me, a sense of an impending–I hesitate to use the word–molting. (Ew, I know.) I’m shedding the skin of the first half of my life…kids grown, resume a solid […]

You wouldn’t believe the stars

April 28, 2015.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep “You wouldn’t believe the stars.” My daughter tells me this in one of her voice messages from the refugee camp in north Africa. She and her friend had dragged their bedding out onto the desert sand, staying up until 2 a.m. as if this was some junior high sleepover, chatting and “wow”ing and awestruck. We live 30 […]

Are we still gazing up at the clouds?

April 6, 2015.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep Easter Day 2015 I have one raw egg in the fridge. My youngest is at a missionary camp in Florida. My other daughter and son are at their dad’s girlfriend’s for the first time. These things don’t negate the fact that it is Easter, and the sun is shining. But I […]

Walk as Well as You Can

March 31, 2015.Reading time 5 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep Maybe it was your mother. Your wife. Your daughter, sister, grandmother, friend…even a historical figure. But at some point in your life, a woman made a difference in it. A big I-would-not-be-who-I-am-today-without-her kind of difference. Today is the last day of National Women’s History Month. (Nothing like jumping on the lesser-known […]