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…
We’ve been wedding planning, my daughter and I. The flowers were the perfect shades of pink, the dessert carefully chosen (not too sweet, but with a hint of almond), the music  just right, and then there were the words. Beautiful, powerful words that snuck up on me and made me cry through my smile. It…
Shame seems to settle differently in different personalities. There are tender folks who agonize over the slightest fumble. Others seem able to walk away from an acute mistake feeling very little remorse at all. I process shame like a thinky type. For years, I rehash my mistake over and over, fleshing out the nuances. I…
So, maybe you need a laugh. This (video below) will certainly provide it. But, I also thought it was a good occasion to ask what our readers’ favorite mercy ministry/charity serving kids are. So, I’m asking. It can be something you support, or are involved with, or just an organization you admire. Feel free to…
I have a 12 year old daughter, and sometimes she’s kind of a tom-boy. She loves to be outside in the creek, and she’s not afraid to mix it up with her brothers. However, when she dresses up nice, from time to time people tell her that she is very pretty.  She never really knows…
This was one of my Papaw’s favorite poems. I have fond memories of him reciting this on his back porch, tearing up and recalling his own little children and their sneak attacks. It’s also a vision close to my heart. For the deep joy of a loving connection to my own kids is one of…
I was jumping on the couch with scissors. The reason I remember is because I didn’t do things like that. I was the oldest kid, the responsible one. Abundance had made me sturdy, with thick, auburn hair and wit enough. I did chores, made A+’s on school papers, and watched the “little kids.” I was…
Here at Story Warren we like to talk a lot about encouraging holy imagination in children and for good reason: Both the culture without and our inherent weakness within militate against seeing the world through the prism of God’s perspective. Today, though, I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about holy…
It’s been a while since I could write for the Story Warren because of our conferences. My mind is still a big puddle of gray goo because of them, so I’m going to write about something I’m watching happen right now, a little creative drama played out in my son’s life. I just want to…
If you have children between the ages of four and ten, I commend to you the Bible Story Book by Elsie E. Egermeier, who sounds like a Dr. Seuss character, but isn’t. Originally published around 1922, Elsie’s (can I call her Elsie? Egermeier is SO hard to spell!) book provides a chronological overview of the…
I lived in Africa as a child/young man and there’s a part of me that has never gotten over the African sky and the beautiful people I knew. So, when I received a guest post submission from a missionary there, I was eager to pass it on to you. Alan Howell and his family live…
We have great hopes for our children’s lives. We want them to love well, so we create opportunities for them to serve others. We want them to be wise, so we invest hours in purposeful, thoughtful conversation. We want them to desire truth and goodness, so we offer tantalizing tastes of the eternal banquet found…
