Dear Daughter, I’m writing to you because I know you’ve been listening. I know it by all the questions you ask. You’ve heard your dad and me talking about presidential candidates, and refugees, and a silverback gorilla. There are other conversations we have kept you from hearing because some things in the world need not trouble you yet. We speak…
Reader, do you know the definition of the word ‘chiaroscuro’? If you look in the dictionary, you will find that it means the arrangement of light and dark, darkness and light together. Let me tell you a few things you already know: Sometimes light and darkness take up residence in the same heart. Sometimes those who…
Reader, do you know the definition of the word ‘chiaroscuro’? If you look in the dictionary, you will find that it means the arrangement of light and dark, darkness and light together. Let me tell you a few things you already know: Sometimes light and darkness take up residence in the same heart. Sometimes those who…
Two-year-old Silas stood awaiting his sentence. Someone had committed a crime against household harmony, and he had no alibi. In fact, the Judge had seen Silas do it. Whoever said “Justice is blind” was crazy, he thought. I think Justice has eyes in the back of her head. And she did. Things were not looking…
I’ve learned what to expect when I take my kids for a walk: my three-year-old hits the ground at a sprint. He charges into the wide world at full tilt, without a plan and without fear. He just has to run. He is a doer. His sister, on the other hand, ambles along with her…
Kids notice everything. Sometimes this can be problematic. Yesterday, for instance, my four-year-old was horrified by some imperfection in a stranger’s complexion at the grocery store. “Mama, what was that THING on that man’s face?” And of course, the man with the thing on this face was still well within earshot. But my kids’ keen…
“You’re just so irritating and… and likeable!” – Annabelle Bransford, “Maverick” One thing I admire about many of my friends who are parents is their knack for creating with and for their children. They can take everyday challenges – picky eaters, messy rooms, monsters under the bed – and turn them into songs or stories…
Editor’s Note: I know it’s Wednesday and our scheme is to have Discovering Resources take center stage, but since it seems we have a fairly few new readers around these parts, I wanted to share something that gets at the heart of what we’re about. This, in a way that’s a little hard to explain,…
Today I will make my son vulnerable to attack. Against all my maternal instincts, I will withhold his protection. My son has asthma, a diagnosis he recently earned in somewhat dramatic fashion. Until last month, I knew next to nothing about asthma. It didn’t seem like a very big deal. The few people I had known…
Father of perfect discipline, Give me a heart that loves mercy more than being right, that loves grace more than law and compassion more than control. Help me not to feel guilt when the discipline is right. Help me to discipline rightly. How many times — knowing you were watching, knowing good and well that…
“Are there real fairies in the world?” I looked up from the mushrooms I was chopping to study my five-year-old daughter’s face. The cock of her head and squint of her eyes matched the skepticism in her voice. Not long ago, a Christian man who my daughter loves told her that fairies don’t exist. She’s…
Last week our neighborhood lost power for a day. All day long I walked into dark rooms and flipped light switches out of habit. I’m not accustomed to operating in the dark. As the hours passed, I began to worry about all the food we could lose in the refrigerator. No one was allowed to…
