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There’s a scene in “Forrest Gump” where Forrest and his beloved Jenny are taking a walk and come to the house she used to live in with her father who abused her.  Jenny sees the dilapidated old place and begins to throw rocks at it, in a fit of rage.  When she crumples to the ground, crying and spent, Forrest …

When I was a little girl, I loved all things “Little House on the Prairie.”  My oldest sister and I shared a love for the books, and we couldn’t get enough of the TV show.  Michael Landon brought Pa to life—he was a pioneer hero, struggling to make a living on his homestead with his wife and girls.  Tornados, scarlet …

My mom emails me every morning—every single morning, no matter what.  There aren’t many things in this world that I can count on with absolute certainty, but I can count on Mom’s morning emails.  The best part of her emails to me is that she writes them after her early morning Bible study time, so I get to hear from …

How was your weekend?  Mine wasn’t the worst weekend I’ve ever had, but it definitely wasn’t the best weekend I’ve had, either.  So I’ve called in reinforcements and have asked a special guest to blog for me tonight.  I’ve asked him to introduce himself and explain his credentials for writing, but other than that, I’ve given him free rein to …

A spoken word poem, written by Renee Adele Phillips and performed by Emily Marie.

A friend of mine posted this image on Instagram a few days ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  My brother, Adam, has taught me so much about life, and one of his lessons to me is to pay attention to the music.  He can be sitting in a Pizza Hut and hear the faintest strain of music, …

There are days. Oh, there are days. When I’m in pain of some kind and I start wishing for something—anything—to make it go away. I have my moments where I think back to when all I had to do was drink or use to make the pain go away. I can get so turned around in my thinking that I …

At the end of every issue of “O,” Oprah Winfrey’s magazine, Oprah writes a short essay on what she knows for sure.  She has written that she knows for sure that the sun will rise again after tragedy, that her friends will always be there for her, that letting go of the past is not only possible but necessary in …

What does a writer do when they have writer’s block?  When the blank screen looms, and the cursor flashes, and the word count says zero?  I don’t know about other writers, but here’s what I do—I open my laptop, stare at the screen for a while, and tell my cats that I can no longer write and have decided to …

I have never fit in.  When I was growing up, I was the odd girl who carried a stack of books around instead of a lunchbox with the latest cartoon hero on it.  I lived mostly in my head, which gave me the reputation of being an absent-minded daydreamer.  I was called a birdbrain, accused of “being out in left …