In my last blog, I announced Vera Bella, the new program I am starting in the Fall for girls in Arizona grades 8^th-12^th! I am overjoyed with how everything is falling into place. Our first meeting doesn’t happen until August, 2013 and we already have 42 girls and counting! I am busy planning and working out the many details involved in running this program. As my focus has been on my local program here in Arizona, I had a few mothers and church leaders across the country requesting access t...

I have a vinyl wall art piece in my house that says, “In a world where you can be anything, BE YOURSELF!” For many people in this world it is a lost truth because they neither know who they are or what they are created for. For twelve years I have had the privilege of speaking to teenagers, especially young women! In that time, I have learned so much about what makes their hearts break, what makes them come alive, what destroys their confidence and dignity and what protects and repairs th...

On July 28, 2010 I suffered an amniotic fluid embolism and died for ten minutes which left me in a critical condition for over 36 hours. Seven days after my sudden death, I returned home from the hospital. As I tried to grasp what just happened to me, I couldn’t help but notice what my husband and children would have come home to had I not made it out of the hospital alive. A morbid thought, I know, but none-the-less, honest.

My husband Doug and I bought a Build-a Bear for our son Brady on...