As a mom of older kids, I often feel like my job is most accurately defined as taxi driver. We spend a lot of time in the car. When I start to complain about it, I remind myself that some of the best conversations happen in the car. I want to know what my kids are thinking and how they’re doing. I want to know what’s on their hearts. They’re so independent now, but at least they still depend on me for rides (most of the time). I try to remember to appreciate this part of our life, knowing that it won’t always be this way.
With tweens and teens, anything beyond surface conversations will only happen on their own terms. If I want to know the good stuff, I have to be available to listen when they feel like talking. And with my kids, that’s usually in the car. One such conversation happened earlier this week.
Read moreWhat does it even mean for the kingdom of heaven to draw near? Growing up in Christian circles, I’ve heard that phrase often, but I never paused to consider what it might mean, until recently.
Read moreOnce again, it's time for "What I Learned", a link-up with Emily @ Chatting at the Sky, where we look back on the past month and share the little treasures we gathered along the way. Sometimes silly, always fun. If you want to join in, link up here.
1. If you're going to paint a brick wall, give yourself a lot of time, and a whole lot of paint- or if you're really smart, rent a sprayer (I didn't do that). It would appear to be an easy project. It's not. Every little grout crevice had to be filled in by hand with a tiny sponge brush. It took 3 gallons of high quality paint to do the job but it was worth it. I love the results.
Read moreI’m an imperfect mom in need of heaps of grace. There are many ways this is true and many confessions I could make, but as I was thinking about writing a post for this Imperfect Mom Confessional series, I thought I’d go straight to the source and find out what my eleven-year-old son thought.
At first he was hesitant to answer, sweet boy, but after I reassured him that I really wanted to know what he thought, he told me.
Read moreI have a marriage board on Pinterest where I collect my favorite blog posts, the ones that inspire. encourage, challenge, and make me want to be a better wife. These 20 links that I'm sharing with you today are not only some of my favorites, but they seem to have resonated with a lot of other people, too. You may have already seen some of these popular posts if you're on Pinterest. Now I've gathered them together in one convenient spot. Enjoy!
Read more“Grace is for the desperate, the needy, the broken, those who cannot make it on their own. Grace is for all of us.”- Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew
I’m reading a book called, The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey, and in it, he tells the stories of two famous Russian novelists, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Yancey explains how these two men helped him better understand what Jesus was saying when he preached the Sermon on the Mount. I highly recommend Yancey’s book, and encourage anyone to read it for themselves, but I will give you a brief synopsis, because I’m excited to share what I’m learning about Grace and who God is. This is good stuff!
Read more“True smallness is an invitation to live as I was meant to live, to accept my humanity, and to offer my ability and my inability, my sin and my success, my messes and my masterpieces into the hands of God.”- Emily P. Freeman, Simply Tuesday
Simply Tuesday, is a book that invites the reader to embrace the ordinary, to exhale, and to recognize that the kingdom work of God is accomplished in the small moments of everyday life.
Read moreJen Hatmaker’s new book, For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards, releases today! I’m so excited to finally tell you more about this new book. I got to read an advance copy months ago, but I’ve kept (mostly) quiet, knowing that wouldn’t be very nice to tell you all about a book that wasn’t available yet. This is a book that you definitely will want to read.
Read moreThe book, Simplicity Parenting, by Kim John Payne, is a great resource. It has influenced my parenting choices over the years. A main idea of the book is to question whether we are building our families on the four pillars of “too much”: too much stuff, too many choices, too much information, and too fast
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