Introducing Our New Writers!

This month we are losing two of our writers and welcoming two more. Grace Cho is now the Editorial Manager for (in)courage and Katelyn Durst is pursuing new vistas in Seattle. We will miss these two gifted writers but hope to see them on our pages again sometime!! A bunch of The Mudroom contributors attended […]

5 Dos and Don’ts of Foster Parenting

This is not a heady article written by people with thirty years’ foster parenting experience. It’s a piece written by a former foster child with 14 years’ experience, from 4 years old to 18. It’s directed more at foster parents of preschoolers and older. I’m writing out of my own journey through broken family, trauma, […]

The Mudroom Turns 4!

We have been going strong for 3 years and we want to make our 4th year something special too. We’ve added a few features such as Dear Portia, our advice column with Heather Caliri and Flashback Friday starting next week, where we’re posting a piece from the archives. There’s too much good writing on here […]

Introducing Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros!

At the beginning of the year I send our monthly contributors an email highlighting the previous year’s stats and ask them to answer a few questions about their ongoing capacity as writers for The Mudroom. Last year was hard for our writers. A few took sabbaticals due to family crises, a couple of us experienced prolonged […]

Bringing Down the Wonder

I’m not known for my patience, and sadly it seems this trait has been passed on to my daughter. But we wait differently. I wait for good things to happen, but don’t expect much. Phoenix waits for good things to happen with unfiltered excitement, joy, and expectation. She literally jumps up and down ecstatically. She […]

When Healing Looks Like Boredom

The suburbs and the country scared me as kid. There were too many dead ends and cul-de-sacs, not enough lights. The vastness of open fields and the emptiness of woods caused dread and panic to rise in me and I would find myself looking around me, behind, feeling exposed and unsafe. When I was 7 […]

Ink, Blood, and Tears

I got off the bus at my new school and saw the parking lot filled with cars. This was nothing like my former crowded, noisy, urban Philadelphia high school with the dark stairwells and constant police presence. I’d never seen so many Ford Tauruses in my life. Some even had monograms on the doors. I […]

The Waging and the Waiting

This essay is an excerpt from the anthology Soul Bare: Stories of Redemption published by Inter Varsity Press in August 2016. In 1977, my mother left my brothers and me with sitters to go looking for an apartment and didn’t return for days. When she finally did, after what most people considered a “lost weekend,” my […]

Warming Up to Prayer

I live in a community, Jesus People USA, a real-life intentional community with 250 other people. That means I experience a lot of connecting, but not much quiet.  In 2002, having lived in community for 10 years, I was so restless and distracted I could barely function. Communal living has so many blessings, but it […]

The Enneagram is a Jerk

I remember my first experience with the Enneagram. A few friends had been talking about it consistently and they encouraged me to take the test myself. I completed the quiz, looked up my number, and began to read. I found myself scoffing and huffing more with every page I read, until I finally threw the […]

2017: Entering In

We are excited to leap into 2017 with you and have some exciting announcements to share!! Sad news first. We’re saying goodbye to Abby Norman, who has been with us since the beginning. She is pursuing her dream of becoming a pastor and needs to focus her time and energy on seminary. We will miss her […]

Simplicity and Meaning

    It seems like I was born into forced simplicity or at least semi-poverty. I never had a lot of things. When I was taken to my first foster home my whole four-year-old world could fit in a half-full paper bag rolled down at the top.    After my second move the foster mother […]

Soul Bare Giveaway!!

    A small hybrid press announced a new community project called Soul Bare: Reflections on Becoming Human, created by Cara Sexton. The original call for submissions was announced on July 12, 2012, with a deadline of November 1, 2012.   It was to be a collection of raw, personal stories by some well-known Christian writers […]

Meet our Newest Writers!!

We’ve added some new writers to our Mudroom family and can’t wait to introduce you to them. You may already know them from their online presence and stunning writing. These women are thoughtful, gritty, and engaging, and you should be following them everywhere. Please join us in welcoming . . .    Grace P Cho […]