I sat with Mandy as she piled her things into a suitcase. I did everything I could to convince her to give her marriage another chance. Her husband was difficult, this was true, but he wasn’t hopeless. He was willing to admit his problems, get counseling, and work...
My husband and I often go on walks through our neighborhood park. One day, our 9-year-old daughter, Katherine, wanted to tag along. Robbie and I grumbled about the difficulties of our current circumstances, while Katherine gathered “wishes” (dandelion seed pods) and...
As parents and followers of Christ, my husband and I make careful choices about how we observe different holidays. While Halloween is a secular holiday for most in our culture, the same could be said for Christmas and Easter. One may even argue that the secular...
The French writer Colette captured these passionate conflicting thoughts of a new bride: “The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.” She captures...
“I think David should wear a white tuxedo,” my dad insisted. “He is just as pure as Sabrina, so why shouldn’t he dress in white for his wedding day?” With smirking eyes, my spouse-to-be and I attempted to explain to my dad that white suits were cool in the ‘70s...
In 1981, Prince Charles and Princess Diana spent $110 million on their wedding, according to financesonline.com. It was dubbed “the wedding of the century,” and decades later, it is still the most expensive wedding of all time. Countless hours were spent...
“Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood . . . the people that you meet each day.” Those familiar lyrics from the song by Sesame Street’s Ernie played along in my head every morning as my son and I took our thirty-minute walk up and down the streets of our...
I once heard of a young man who said, “A marriage license is like a receipt. If I don’t like this wife, I can exchange her for another one.” His careless response seems shockingly harsh, but this blatant statement encapsulates the actions of our current society. It’s...
Your preteen is embarking on the era of adolescence, when many of life’s choices will be made, and they need you now more than ever. Preteens are unique because, unlike most teenagers, they still invite participation and close friendships with parents—an attitude that...
My children were just babies when my husband, David, was killed in a head-on collision. Ben had just turned two, and Katherine was only three months old. I was worried sick about how the lack of a father would affect them, mainly because of all the articles and...
When my sister-in-law Jerra was a young mother, she wanted to teach her daughter, Natalie, to say, “yes, Ma’am” and “no Ma’am” when speaking to adults. But for some reason Jerra couldn’t get her to stop saying “yep” and “nope.” When it came down to disciplinary...
I remember being in my last months of that first pregnancy, watching the weeks tick by. Sometimes those last few weeks appeared to be long and burdensome like walking in deep mud; other times they seemed blurry, like objects you see while rolling down a hill. It...
