Gaining a heart of wisdom
For me, Round One was not such that I would have predicted a mushy Father’s Day blog post in my future. (Who would have ever predicted blogs, anyway?) My experience with this Hallmark holiday was aptly described by author, Leslie Leyland Fields: “Some will turn away from thirty minutes at the card rack empty-handed and sad.” Then,… Continue reading Father’s Day {Redeemed}
For ten lovely years we were six. I loved being six. In fact, I loved it so much that my email address incorporates our last name and the number six. However, numbers change as children grow up and take flight. After our oldest son married, we were mostly five, but sometimes seven; and when son… Continue reading Living Fully with a Broken Heart
The peas that are sprouting in my garden have come from the seeds that, just a few weeks ago, slept under a layer of snow. There's a devotional thought there somewhere, but that's not my purpose today, so I'll resist the urge and proceed with a recap of happenings here at Living Our Days --… Continue reading Musings – May 2016
When Morin Boy #1 was born into this family, I went into immediate mothering overdrive. Every book, every magazine, every radio program that featured parenting experts: I was there. My sleep-deprived brain was, apparently, incapable of filtering out all the contradictory thinking, so one week I would try someone's advice that sounded great, and when… Continue reading Eight Parenting Strategies
Encouragement; reassurance; words of wisdom crafted in the trenches. Somehow, Seth Haines knew that this was the gift his wife needed for the Christmas following the birth of their third child -- so he put out the word. Friends, favorite authors, and bloggers were asked for a contribution of hope, a letter from the heart… Continue reading Borrowed Strength for Mothers
Teaching or leading in a Christian context is always a bit of a risk. There's the perception that you just might have all the answers; that your life is all nice and pulled together; that you and God have some kind of agreement about how life is going to unfold -- when the truth is that… Continue reading In the Midst of Your Mess
Ruth A. Tucker is a story teller. I have vivid and fond memories from my experience of reading her Dynamic Women of the Bible when it was released in 2014. As she unfurled and then analyzed the story of each Biblical woman, tiny shards of her own story would poke through the narrative fabric: an abusive husband, the humiliation… Continue reading No Sanction for Domestic Abuse
Feed the cat. Pick up your toys. Let's get in the car and GO! Such is our hurry-up world that even the tiniest toddler knows what it is to be Busy, Busy. Therefore, Eileen Spinelli's board book is a tool in the hands of wise parents who know that our work, our rest, and our… Continue reading Never Too Busy
"What's that, Mum?" asked my son, pointing to a small plastic something-on-the- ground. "That's just a barrette," I replied, off-handedly. "What's a barrette?" he asked -- framing in one simple question the deeply entrenched boy-culture and the essence of the testosterone-laced air that I have breathed for the past two decades. With this as background,… Continue reading The Art of Being a Wife
There's nothing like summer fun on the scenic shores of a lake: sand between the toes, an afternoon spent face-down in the clear, cold water, tiny fish peering back at you through your goggles. Irish Beth Maddock celebrates the beauty of the creatures that God has made through the eyes of Paul and Beth, a brother… Continue reading A Fish Story for the Whole Family
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