On a post last year about the growing expectations on young woman to look physically perfect (and increasingly generic), a commenter wrote: Quick thought from a guy – Know what really hurts? When a girl spends a mountain of care and attention trying to win over exciting but unsaved “bad boys”, but then discovers the…
Author: Jess Connell
How To Stop the Judgments, Stop the Comparisons, and Be at Peace With the Mom You Are
It happens in the grocery store aisle, when someone else’s children are behaving better or worse than your own. Or in the church nursery, when your child bites another mom’s toddler, or vice versa. Or at the park, when, after being called, your child (or hers) runs in the opposite direction. But where it’s really…
One Hundred Little Choices in Marriage
10 non-sexual touches a day. It’s one assignment my husband gives to married couples who are struggling. 10 non-sexual touches a day. For some couples, it’s a steep challenge that takes hard work, like rusted-over gears that haven’t cranked in years. For others, after a few days or a week of practice, it starts an avalanche…
Is This One Reason You’re An Angry Mom?
Sometimes we blame our anger on circumstances (“it annoyed me that he kept doing x”), people (“she just gets under my skin,” or “our personalities just clash”), and sometimes–perhaps more rare– we own it all ourselves (“I’ve got an anger problem.”) However, I think there’s one thing that is nearly universal in the way it…
When Your Kids Need You To Be Stubborn
We all start out with high hopes for our children. But over time, as moms, we get worn down. The years… the fussing… the hormones… the reality of daily life with sinners– it all swirls together and we find ourselves in a mental “place” we could not have foreseen when we stared down at our…
20 Thoughts About Honeymoon Sex for Virgins
My husband, Doug, and I are privileged to be able to do marital and pre-marital counseling through our church. Here are some of our thoughts for the about-to-be-married virgin couple about having healthy, realistic attitudes about honeymoon sex: 1. GO SLOW. For her: Your body takes time to relax and open up. Let yourself warm up…
Where Are the Titus 2 Women?
“Older women are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to much wine. They are to teach what is good, so they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, homemakers, kind, and submissive to their husbands, so that God’s message…
Is Your Parenting Focused on the Wrong Things?
Recently, I watched a video that appeared on my Facebook feed. Filling the comments section was a litany of moms who claimed they “couldn’t even watch the video because they were so distracted by the fact that none of the kids were buckled into their carseats correctly.” It got me to pondering… There are a whole lot…
When Your Life Is Devastated
Yesterday our family drove to Mount St. Helens, the famous volcano in Washington state that erupted in 1980. The eruption enacted complete devastation in the blast area. It “blew down so many trees that the toll was calculated at 4 billion board feet, the amount of lumber to build 300,000 two-bedroom homes.” The blast zone…
Why Getting Older Is a Good Thing
{Editor’s Note: I wrote this more than 7 years ago. It’s just as true now as it was then. Only difference is, I need to actively work to hear it and believe it more than I did then.} An acquaintance of mine recently asked our group of friends if we ever felt like the best years of life were…