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Friend Says “Of All People, You Should Get Why Someone Would Abort a Cleft Baby”—Dad’s Reply Is Perfect

"My ‘friend’ said, ‘Come on, of all people, you should get why someone would want to abort a cleft baby.’ That shocked me. Why would he think that?"

How I Saved My Marriage With One Question

He asked her just one question every single morning. Two weeks later, he asked the same question, and her eyes welled up with tears...

During a Kitchen Dance Party, Foster Mom Hears Heartfelt Words: ‘I Miss My Other Daddy’

"I felt the tug on my sleeve and looked down to find him standing motionless. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t make out his words. His quiet body in the noisy room caught me off guard. I bent down to find his voice."

Kara Lawler

Kara Lawler is a wife, mother, and teacher who writes regularly in her own space, Mothering the Divide, and shares a nightly story on her Facebook page. She has been married to her high school sweetheart for 15 years, is a mother of two small children who inform all of her writing and her perspective, and has been an English teacher for 16 years. Together with her family, she does small scale farming on the family homestead, Aisling House (Aisling is Irish for “dream”), a southern-style farmhouse located in the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania. Much of her work draws on the natural world found just right outside her door. The divide to her is mothering all of these parts of her life, as she mothers her children. As she sees it, the divide is trying to balance it all and embracing the beauty of mothering, in general. Kara writes about children and identity with a spiritual, reverent tone. Often, her work is a form of prayer, as she truly believes that observation is a form of prayer. Her writing is honest and authentic, and while she acknowledges, openly, that parenting and marriage aren't easy, she truly believes that nothing worth doing usually is. Being a mom and a wife can be work, but that very work she considers to be vocational. Becoming and being someone's mother has been a journey for her--a journey of self-discovery as she mothers these pieces of her heart.

The Secret to Marriage Is Staying Quiet

"I wonder if my marriage has survived almost 15 years (and 22 years of a relationship) because we’ve learned just to accept our petty flaws? Because we’ve stayed quiet?"