Covering topics that impact today's Christian: family, marriage, raising kids, spiritual growth, forgiveness, etc.
He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38) I had the privilege of teaching the message at our church this past Sunday. The message was on Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. I love this story. Oh, I know that might sound strange. After all, it’s not an uplifting passage, like the Sermon on the Mount or one that demonstrates Jesus’s mighty power, like
At least 31 killed in weekend mass shootings. That’s what the headline read. I recall a particularly dark night, a little more than a year ago when I held my son, helping him to calm his breathing and slow his tears. I won’t go into details, but suffice to say my son, who has OCD and an anxiety disorder, went to a terrifying place and was almost swallowed up by it. As I whispered words of comfort and Truth in
Several weeks ago, my son came home devastated because one of his close friends told him that his parents didn’t want him to be friends with my son anymore. To the little boy’s credit, he told my son he didn’t care what his parents said, he still wanted to be friends. But the damage was done. My son, who has been diagnosed with OCD and anxiety disorders, could not get it out of his mind that there was an adult
I clicked the button to confirm my account and the first question popped up: “What are your core values?” And I had to stop and think. I wasn’t expecting such a deep question from an app. I was working in my new goal tracking app, Lifetick, and thinking I would just enter in my goals for 2018 and a set a few deadlines and notifications and be done with it. But before I could do that, this app wanted to
It’s 10:30 p.m. and I’m exhausted. The kids have been in bed for an hour, and my husband is asleep on the couch next to me. I shut down the laptop, turn off the TV, and pick up the cordless house phone to put in the charger. I am aware that if I don’t remember to do this tonight we won’t have use of our home phone the next day because someone has used the other handset, forgotten to put
I love everything about Christmas, but perhaps my favorite part is seeing the look on a loved-ones face when they open a special gift I’ve chosen just for them. Yet, every year it seems to get harder and harder to come up with creative gifts for the people on my list, while staying within budget. In the last few years I’ve begun to seek out gifts that offer more, without having to spend more. What I’ve discovered are companies that
In the big picture, 90 days is just a tiny blip on the timeline of my life. A small fraction of the days I have spent here on earth, and hope to spend in the future. But when you’re in the midst of something really challenging, or when you’re waiting for something, 90 days can feel like an eternity. Ninety days ago I began an experiment, set-out on a small journey, to see what it would be like to practice
As a mom of three kids, two of whom are twins, one of my biggest challenges is keeping sibling rivalry at bay. I realize that some form of sibling rivalry is inevitable and it’s been happening since the beginning of time (thank you very much, Cain and Abel). My sister and I certainly fought and competed with one another growing up. But I always imagined — before having children – that my kids would love and support one-another, growing-up to
“God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.” – Psalm 46:4 Recently I was looking at Facebook and a collection of my “September memories” popped up. At first glance, I smiled thinking about all the joy and special times that had come in September. But the reality is there were also a lot of not-so-great moments, struggles that left me feeling very depleted and scared. In late-August my son was diagnosed with
Have you ever had one of those weeks, or months, where you keep seeing the same message over, and over again? Usually when that happens to me it’s because God is trying to get a message across. And for the last several weeks it’s been all about a seed. A mustard seed, to be exact. How many of you have seen a mustard seed? It’s pretty small, right? Smaller than a 1 carat diamond, tinier than a grain of rice.