Gaining a heart of wisdom
When I was in college, my mother would mail small packages filled with improbable gifts. Her favorite was soap. Apparently, she believed there was none available in northeast Georgia, so she would, from her meager income, purchase soap and then pay for the postage to ship it to me. Invariably, she would also send cookies… Continue reading Three Gifts We Can Give to Our Adult Children this Mother’s Day
As parents, we want what’s best for our children because we love them. Our perception of what's "best," therefore, shapes our prayers for our kids. We suffer over their failures and rejoice with them when success comes. Sadly, our hearts forget that God’s love for our kids is even deeper than our own. We forget… Continue reading When Your Kids Make Poor Choices, Do You Feel Like a Parenting Failure?
Right from the outset, the years of parenting grown children should come with a big sign hanging over them, a huge and joyful banner that reads: Welcome to the Season of Reorganization! Suddenly, a house that was stretching at the seams with every bedroom full of stuffed animals and noisy life finds itself with three… Continue reading Parenting Adult Children? Welcome to the Season of Reorganization!
A tall platform at the Colorado Springs Zoo gives patrons a once-in-a-lifetime, eyeball-to-eyeball experience with giraffes, the gentle giants of the animal kingdom. Not quite two, my little grandson fed lettuce leaves to his new tame and very attentive friends. “Look at those big brown eyes!” I crowed. “Big, beautiful eyes like yours!” “Long purple… Continue reading How Can I Discourage My Son’s Potty Mouth and Encourage Good Manners?
Along the wooded trail behind my home, a birch tree arches in a graceful curve as it stretches across the pathway. It’s a veteran of a good many northern New England ice storms and knows what it is to bow low under a weight of snow and frozen rain. Even though its tip-top branches have… Continue reading Solid Theology and the Gift of Community: Keys to Resilient Mothering
Advent Series Part Three: Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6) Both my grandsons have been created in the express image of their fathers, which amounts to a temperamental salad bar of sensitivity, willfulness, and a worldview that sees all of life as a multiple-choice quiz--and all the answers are "None of the Above." This shared understanding has… Continue reading The Importance and the Blessing of an Understanding Father
Roots and wings are the gifts Christian parents pass on to our children. We establish rules, give them responsibilities that build confidence and skill, and water those deep roots with lots of love and prayer, knowing that strengthening wings will soon carry our children away from home, out of reach of our influence and our… Continue reading Three Biblical Ways to Pray for Your Adult Children
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.” Annie Dillard, The Writing Life When I first read this quote from Annie Dillard, I was up to my fetlocks in raising four sons. What I was doing… Continue reading Jump-Start Your Daily Routines and Establish Good Habits for a Lifetime
By the time I was 21, I had been thoroughly inoculated against any threat of marriage by the wistful comments of my married friends: “Oh, you can do that now, but just wait till you get married and have kids…” They painted an image of a small, constricted world with no scented candles (dangerous open… Continue reading 3 Mothering Insights I Learned on the Job, but Wish I Had Known from the Start
I can still remember where I was sitting on the Sunday morning when I realized that I could do everything I knew to pass the baton of faith to my children, and they might not choose to follow Christ. I could bring them to church, have consistent family devotions, teach them to read their own… Continue reading Family Discipleship: Whose Job Is It and Why Is It Important?
Living Our Days 