I love being a Momma. All of it. I love all of it. All the joy. The learning. The growing. The stretching. Yes, even the struggle and strain. I find that it's the hard parts of motherhood that help me most become like Jesus. When I was in my early twenties, I remember going on a bike ride in my neighborhood. (I was still living at home with my parents because I was afraid to leave home and there were other factors weighing in on that, but I won't get into that now.) Anyways, I remember passing this empty house. I stopped in my tracks and paused there on the road and wondered if I'd ever buy a house. Or marry a best friend. Or have any children. And I decided then, on that patch of pavement, that all of that was impossible. It wasn't that it was impossible for anybody else, it[...]

Life has been feeling insane. Not a bad kind of insane. Just a fast and furious kind. The kind where you have to pause and catch your breath. The kind where you feel yourself clawing for time to please slow down, but it doesn't listen to you, so you have to stop and slow your own frantic heart down and just take some breaths. Brent and I and the kids are about to go through a big life transition. (Stay tuned! Exciting things ahead. But, I'm not ready to tell you quite yet.) In the meantime, we're trying desperately to stay connected. So, here's what we do. Every evening, when Brent gets home from his whirlwind of a day at work, I stand on this here stool and we hug. For at least 20 whole seconds. We just hold each other and breathe and sometimes one of us sings a little song to t[...]

Matt Maher sings this song, “Love will hold us together, build us a shelter to weather the storm. And I'll be my brother's keeper, so the whole world will see that we're not alone.” So, what does this mean, that love has the ability to hold us together? Do we really believe that love can keep us reaching out and finding one another’s hand in the dark? Can love hold keep us in proximity to each other, even through storms? Storms like uncertainty and loss, disappointment, frustration, and just the everyday plodding along that we have to do, to get through the grueling and mundane parts of life? How is that kind of love possible? This week, a friend called me. She’s got a daughter who’s only been married a few months and turns out, this newly married couple doesn't get along al[...]

I have to tell you something about Jesus and marriage. There will be nights when you will go to bed and you will think that your spouse is your enemy. They'll do something stupid (or you'll do something stupid) and man, it'll be hard and one of you will want to scratch the other's eyes out. You'll feel your heart callous up and fortify itself in some kind of concrete barricade. You will think that change is not even possible. Even if you're a Christian, you'll start to question if there's enough power in Jesus to really help you, or them, overcome this particular sin and selfishness. Listen, my loves. Jesus is a very present Help in time of trouble. It's true. I know because I felt Him last night and this morning after Brent and I had a massively hard time working through some[...]

Sometimes you might wake up to a bad day. Well, it might be a good day outside. There might be light everywhere and flowers bloomin' and birds singin', but there on your insides, everything feels overwhelming. And it might not be your fault entirely. It might have even started the night before when things didn't go as you had hoped or planned. And so you went to bed not quite at peace with God and the world and you woke up with some internal struggles right from the get-go. Yep, the sunlight could be streaming in that window and you might feel like a train wreck before the cereal is even poured. The world does its own thing, and you can't change what's going on around you, but there are some things that you can do to help your insides. To get your day back on track. For on[...]

Sometimes mommas and daddies get in these fights. They disagree. They yell. They turn away and don’t talk to each other. This can drag out for days. It’s a terrible thing, really, these rifts in relationships. And when this happens, there are some things that all the kids need from their mommas and daddies. The thing is, little kids need these things, they’re just not big enough, quite yet, to articulate their deep-down needs. But, if they could speak them to us, I think it would do us good. At least, when all the mommas and daddies aren’t getting along, it would be good for us to think about them, too. And imagine what it is our kids would want to say. Dear Momma, I need you to listen to Daddy. Like, really listen. To his heart. Try to look beyond the things he’s saying t[...]

Last night I had this dream that I was back in college in my single days, and these two guys liked me. In my dream, I really liked being liked. I liked the feeling of being pursued and sought after and chased and all that. And when I woke up, I felt a little sad and kinda confused because here I am this very happily married girl, and sometimes I still dream about that kind of thing. Later, when Brent got up and stumbled down the stairs with his flannel pajamas and hoodie and asked to sit by me on the couch, and share my blanket, I told him about my dream. I told him how I love being married to him and being thoroughly and completely loved but sometimes I miss that mysterious part, where you don't really know each other that well yet, and it still feels tingly when you're touched or [...]

My Ma and Pa married each other on May 28th, 1969. That was forty-five years ago. They were recently asked to share their story with a big group of friends in order to encourage and give some hope. And couldn't we all use some hope? That's why I'm sharing this story of theirs here with you. We're all a bit battered and broken and it's hard being married and staying married, especially in this culture. So, whether you're married or not, hang on to this. It'll help. And thank you, Ma and Pa, for clinging to Jesus, Hope Himself, and for sticking together and being there for me. My dad's part of the story is italicized. They tag-teamed. Here goes: I grew up in a very loving, secure home.  My dad was a bi-vocational pastor. Mom stayed home and raised the kids.  We went to church a l[...]

Dear husband of mine,I'm wildly crazy about you. Still. And when a girl is wildly crazy about a man, it's hard for her not to shout it out to the world.There are these moments, in the parking lot at the grocery store, when I look over at you, clutching our little kid's hands in yours, letting them jump and skip, even though it's hard to hold onto them and keep them from getting run over when they jump and skip, that I want to shout it out right there, underneath the blazing sky, for all the parking lot pedestrians to hear, that you are indeed an incredible man. I restrain myself. Because I've seen how you blush. Like, the time I put the peat moss basket on my head in the home and garden aisle and pretended to be asian-of-sorts and nodded and bowed at all the folks we passed. Or the time I [...]