I bought this cute block décor, but realize that its flowery words actually irk me. “Bloom where you are planted” is meant to conjure a visual reminder to flourish within our present season and circumstance, without comparing or competing or striving for what we don’t …
“Have you tried setting up a clear morning and bedtime routine for him?” A counselor kindly offered suggestions when I told her my child was not sleeping well at night and then refusing to go to school in the morning. I smiled thinly, and said …
“This room looks so much bigger when it’s not divided.” My daughter and I had returned to our old home to pick up another load of belongings. She’d wandered into the now-empty room her brothers shared- the room that had once been literally divided in …
There’s an interesting passage of Scripture (Luke 10:25-37) where a man asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?“ Jesus flips this back around and asks the man, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?“ The man answers, “Love …
I’m noticing a disturbing trend as I allow God to dismantle and rearrange the Christianity I grew up with. I was talking with friends last night- the cumulative venting of parenting, faith and our current versions of isolation. My friend and I lamented that as …
The church is a powerful, God-designed agent of His Kingdom on earth. When the body of Christ responds in fullness of sacrificial surrender to God and others, the church is the catalyst for the fruit of the Spirit made manifest within creation. Yet the church …
As a “pastor’s kid” for most of my life, I was bubble wrapped pretty snugly in protestant church culture long before I could say “Bible”. In many ways my childhood was idyllic, and I’m grateful for the foundation laid then that started me on a …
I have a confession: Sunday morning, after my usual slow moving, coffee and protein bite, I only lasted about 30 minutes into the morning before engaging in an argument with one of my kids. I mean, he was certainly wrong. But so was my reaction. …
I’m notorious for selectively eating things. Before I had diabetes, I would pick out the cookie dough chunks from the cookie dough ice cream (and I would try to smooth the gaping holes over as though my family were idiotic enough to believe that Breyer’s …
When I was young, my family would make a yearly trek from our winter wonderland in Massachusetts, to have a green Tennessee Christmas with extended family. I loved the road trip games and Yoohoo drinks my dad bought for the journey. (What was I thinking? …