One Overlooked Way to Improve Your Desire for Creation Care
Naming helps us initiate a connection. God began there with Adam, so we too can learn names as a way of reconnecting with God’s good creation.
The Secret to Change: One Unexpectedly Audacious Act
I sit mulling over my to-do list for the day. Wash two loads of laundry. Hem daughter’s dress pants for her internship. Buy gift for nephew’s birthday and teleport back two days ago to get it in the mail to him on time. The usual stuff. My pen is still poised over the paper when…
The Theology of Trees & Lambs
I’m a homebody. Or rather a “housebody.” My preferred place is indoors, especially at my own house. But what if, in God’s plan, he meant me for more? I love being in my kitchen when it’s filled with food, drink, and conversation. I love spending a quiet evening playing games or doing jigsaw puzzles beside…
Letting Nature Pull Me
I’m not an outdoors person. At least, that’s not how I have ever described myself. After all, I’m not fond of bugs or dirt or rocks, and the outdoors holds a plethora of each. But recently I wondered if I should stop refusing to wear that title. Because my denial might not be entirely accurate….
At Jael’s Feet
“Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of tent-dwelling women.” The sun was peeking over the edge of the mountain ridge when the rumblings started. Jael looked up from the fire she was kindling to bake the day’s bread. In the fringes of pink that touched the grey…
An Easier Way to Steer
It hits me how this mirrors parenting. Lately, I have been paddling hard, telling my kids where they’re off track and how they need to change what they’re doing. I tire myself this way. Instead, I should simply set my paddle in, fixed on what I know God is asking of them — of me…
The Paper Route
I believe girls can do almost anything boys can do. They might just do it differently. The news agency holds a prominent spot in our village’s downtown area on the south side of the railroad tracks, directly across the street from the train station. Housed in one of the low brick buildings that line the…
Why We Need the Courage to Admit When We’re Wrong
It’s hard to admit when we’ve done something wrong and hurt another person in the process. Really hard. In fact, it’s easier to point our finger at another source than to own up to our role in the matter. Have you ever noticed this tendency in yourself? You know you’ve got to apologize because it’s…
The Secret to Fewer Regrets
Parenting requires so many decisions, it can sometimes become mind-numbing. How to respond to discipline issues, what to do about kids’ friendship struggles, which sports to encourage them toward and what other activities to enroll them in. We have so much information and so many opportunities at our fingertips, it can be hard to sort…
Reclaiming Time for What You Want to Do Most
Years and years ago I read an excellent little book (more like a booklet) called The Tyranny of the Urgent. This was in the days before cell phones, email and text messaging. I remember being struck then by its simple message about how we should stop diverting our attention from the important to take care…
The Importance of Knowing Yourself
Do you remember the vultures in Disney’s 1967 Jungle Book movie? The Beatles look-alike, sound-alike characters? I often think of their patter, “What we gonna do?” “I dunno. What you wanna do?,” when I think of the indecisiveness that can creep into motherhood. If your answer to the question: “what do you want to do?”…
When “Super Moms” Make You Feel Small
I’m waiting at a stoplight when I see one again: that oval sticker on the back of a minivan that says “26.2” (or sometimes “13.1″). Are you tired of those yet? Because I am. And not because I think those who have completed a marathon don’t deserve to boast. They do. Completing a 26.2 mile…
Create your Writing Bucket List!
What dreams do you have for your writing life? To publish a book? Become a best-selling author (with your dream book)? To change the world? Writers are dreamers. Whether we write fiction or not, we live in a world of imagination. We imagine our readers and how our words will entertain them, move, them, inspire…
The Importance of Finishing
As of this moment I have dozens of drafts saved on my hard drive. Drafts of articles, drafts of essays, drafts of book chapters, even the draft of a novel. Hopefully this sounds familiar. It’s the life of a writer, right? We draft and revise, draft and revise, and revise some more, and then finally…