You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. – Isaiah 26:3 The idea of being missional has quickly gained a place in the vocabulary of faith-driven Christians. It captures an idea that resonates with many kingdom-minded believers today—the mission of the church should affect all that we…
Last week’s Olympics post focused on having fun with the Games as a family. But the world’s biggest competition can show us more than just humanity’s highest jumpers and fastest swimmers. In the midst of the gold-medal frenzy, the Olympics give us plenty of material for helping kids to understand the importance of losing. Losing…
It is early morning. For more than an hour I’ve been up praying, or reading scripture, or checking out ESPN.com, and now I’m sitting down at the kitchen table eating a bowl of Honeynut Cheerios with almond milk, and a handful of blueberries. The birds are now awake and tweeting like a tree full of…
“Joy is prominently placed in Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit, second only to love (Galatians 5:22-23). If Christian homes are little outposts of the new Eden, green with the fruits of the Spirit, we should expect joy to be one of the main crops. Joy should be the dominant tone of a…
I’ve loved the Olympics since 1984, when with little-girl wonder I watched Mary Lou Retton land that perfect-10 vault to win the gold medal. Seeing that one dream come true sent my imagination soaring, leading to a head full of dreams and five years of competitive gymnastics. And also a broken bay window. Though I…
How little I knew about life before I had children! For example, I didn’t know that babies can develop an oral yeast infection called thrush. (Until that point, a thrush was something that twittered outside your window when you were trying to snooze on Saturday mornings. A Saturday snooze—ah, the memories.) I didn’t know you…
[I]magination has the property of magical expansion; the more it holds the more it will hold. ~ Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 1925 It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that imagination is like inspiration—that it just kind of happens. Not true. Imagination is just like a muscle—it will become weaker or stronger depending…
My son, Coulter, is nine months old which means that he is discovering all kinds of miraculous little things. Just this week he has discovered that when he slams the cabinet doors against their frames they make a loud noise and that when he pulls mommy’s hair she makes a similarly loud noise. He has…
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…
It is the business of a sinful world to turn our eyes away from Jesus – to the more pressing, familiar-seeming things around us: “a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past” (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters). Our work, entertainment, and hobbies act as anesthetics. And like anesthetics, they block pain…
My husband can tell that my annual bout of parenting fatigue has arrived when I lock myself in our bedroom with the laptop and a half-pint of Starbucks Java Chip ice cream. I’ll sit on the bed crying into a soft old t-shirt from college, rattle around YouTube, and occasionally whimper, “I can’t do this…
I woke to the smell of bacon and coffee, familiar and pleasant and full of the promise of a new adventure. Rolling out of my sheet, I tossed my legs to the floor and dragged my boots towards me with my right foot. I slipped into the jeans draped over the foot of the bed…
