Mother’s Day can be a touchy subject for some families. Blended families, for example, often struggle with the tension of celebrating both stepmom and biological mom. Other families deal with the pain of grief at Mother’s Day, facing the loss of a mother or child....
How many times in my Christian life have I heard that Jesus rose from the grave? How many times did I hear that I would be resurrected from death? These were facts that I knew, but until I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, the knowledge was only in my...
While driving one day, I was stopped at a busy intersection, and I looked up to see a beautiful vibrant rainbow arching across the sky. Awed by the sight, I scanned the other drivers to see if they shared my appreciation, but none saw it—not a single one. I wanted to...
Life is busy for everyone during the child raising years. School sports games, band concerts, and extracurricular activities have a way of taking over the family calendar. This is especially true for blended families because we have all the normal family busyness...
My husband, Robbie, and I have struggled with communication from day one of our marriage. His 32-year military career didn’t exactly encourage “sharing.” He always said, “If the Army wanted me to have feelings, they would have issued me some.” That didn’t help with...
For good or for bad, we parents are the biggest influences in our children’s lives. The way we live creates an impression on kids for the rest of their lives. As scary as that sounds, that’s exactly how God designed family to be. The Bible teaches that parents are to...
A few years ago, there was a Facebook fad going around. It was a friend quiz called “How Well Do You Know Me?” After miserably failing the tests of several of my closest friends, I sent my own in return. To my gratification, they also failed. So all was fair in...
When my first child was born, a certain quote became very important to me. I found it in a stash of newspaper clippings in a box of odds and ends that was passed to me after my grandmother died. I had this little clipping for years, but in my first year of motherhood,...
A friend of mine has worked almost her whole life. Even in elementary school she helped her parents keep their restaurant going. So it was quite a shock to her when she had to stay home for three weeks while she changed jobs. “It was so boring!” she said. “I would get...
I remember hearing the song “Mary Did You Know?” by Michael English for the first time after becoming a mom. I had always loved the song, but hearing the message as a mom gave me a new perspective. The song is a series of questions to Mary, the mother of Jesus, asking...
When I was a child, my mother went through a lot of hard work to help my brother and me learn the Bible. She put together a neighborhood Bible study and gave prizes for anyone who would memorize certain portions of scripture. By the time I was 12 years old, I had...
When my children were babies, I loved reading bedtime stories to them. It’s a routine that sets a good example for children about the importance of reading. It also creates a time and place far away from televisions, computers, and phones, where families can connect...
