Author: Chara Donahue ‘Twas the week before Thanksgiving and all through the house, people were nauseous and I looked at my spouse. The children were stirring, up late in their beds, with buckets, in case, next to their heads. Daddy disinfected and I took a nap, trying to elude a nasty virus’ trap. Then the…
Category: Chara Donahue
Dear Sunday School Teacher
Author: Chara Donahue Dear Sunday School Teacher, I recently told my children that we would be transitioning away from our home church in order to multiply the ministry we are a part of. Two kids cried and one outright refused to leave. She declared that we could drop her off on our way to wherever…
Before I Rise
Author: Chara Donahue Before I Rise I must make the choice. It’s on me. What to believe? What to negate? Today I ask, which voice will it be? Live in the light determined to see, or let depravity poison today’s fate? I must make the choice, It’s on me. Passively cower? An internal absentee? Will…
Hope for the Anxious Heart
Author: Chara Donahue Last year my four year-old came running at me as I laid reading, and she jumped with reckless abandon onto my back. Normally, this would have been benign, but this time her elbow struck the tissue sandwiched between two of my vertebrae. The result of which was nerve damage the doctor said…
Somewhere Between the Be and the Go
Author: Chara Donahue It was early Saturday, my husband leaned over to me and whispered he was going to go to the gym for his jujitsu class. Perfect, I thought, he will take the little ones with him, and I will go back to sleep. What a beautiful plan; he is so wonderful; I love…
Prayers for the Gutsy Girl
Author: Chara Donahue Years ago, I attended a ministry boot camp with Darrin Patrick as the keynote speaker. He shared a personal prayer he often prayed with his son. I did not have a son at the time, but the power of it struck me. I stored it away in the pathways of the brain, just in…
Ballade of Bleached Blemishes
If we can make laundry poetic it makes it better, right? Well, here’s hoping. 😉 I cannot face it. I will not look. Let it be. I will not take the bait or tease the hook. The stress, it mounts thinly—layer by layer—I will flee. No, I will fight. I fold the shirt. I…
Hope at Camp
Author: Chara Donahue This past weekend, I got away from my little city and drove through even smaller towns to reach the wilderness and find camp. I retreated into the forest shade to find quiet that soothed my mind from the intensity of creating summer fun for four young children. As I prayed and prepared…
Hope at the Comic Store
Author: Chara Donahue As a child I often wove through tales of great heroes. Aligned in sequence they greeted me in a procession of freedom fighters, redemption seekers, and ruckus rumblers. Box after box they lured me into worlds built around different rules and unique powers that surpass the things of dreams. There in the…
Hope on Mother’s Day
Author: Chara Donahue It was 12:30 AM Mother’s Day 2005, our first as husband and wife, and we were in the ER. I was bleeding; I was pregnant, but they were telling me I wouldn’t be for much longer. There was no heartbeat. I stared at the wall, and my husband prayed. It felt like…
Anchored Voices 