Last week, after an afternoon where I took 30 minutes out to play and be silly with my kiddos on the trampoline, my 8 year old daughter said: “Mama! I’m so glad you’re back…” I smiled, thinking I knew what she meant, but asked to be sure. She answered, “it’s just… you’ve been nursing, and taking care…
Author: Jess Connell
The Postpartum In-Between: Searching for Joy While Waiting for a New Normal
Have you been in this place? In between sizes In between hormone swings In between “normals” in your daily routine In between feelings of competence & incompetence In between very little sleep and normal amounts of sleep In between a variety of very STRONG feelings My precious little man is 8 weeks old today, and I’m there. The…
7 Ways I Beat Postpartum Stress
I guess I’m a slow learner. It took me lots of babies and births to finally start figuring it out. Our baby #1 (born in a hospital in Virginia) was in the NICU for a week, I had mastitis for a month, and then we packed up our apartment and moved across the country. WHAAAAT??! After baby #2…
Q&A: Staying Steady Through Transition
In the recent Reader Survey, this question came through. It’s one I get asked from time to time, given our history of having lived abroad, in 14 different homes in 14 years of marriage, and doing all of that as a young, growing family: Q: You have been in various states of transition over the past…
Want to Hear a New & Improved Bible?
“Proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new.” (2 Tim. 4:2-3) The…
Is THIS The Reason You’re Spiritually Stuck?
Are you spiritually “stuck?” Feeling like you have questions but no answers? Stagnant in life but unsure how to start growing again? I was 16 years old when it began. I was a coming-out-of-rebellion teen; she was a young mom (in her 20s) with 3 little ones. In free moments of my busy high school life,…
How Embracing “Good Enough” Can Help You Be a Better Mom
Wanna know what my kids have for lunch these days? It’s pretty much the same thing every day: homemade lunchables. Thin deli-sliced ham or turkey, and cheese, with Ritz. Sometimes I have fresh fruit on hand to go with it. Other times, it’s canned fruit, nuts, or packaged cookies. It’s not in cute Bento boxes. It doesn’t…
Freestyle Friday — Romans 12:3
Years ago, Doug & I went through a Grip-Birkman training session— which combines personality & spiritual gifts in order to help teams of Believers work together. One of the verses the trainer focused on has continued to convict and challenge me in the years since: “by the grace given to me I say to everyone among…
56 Ways the Bible Describes Women
Ever wondered– What does the Bible say about women? I thought it would be helpful for us to see how women are described in the Bible, positively and negatively, as we strive to be godly women. This is a fairly exhaustive study of the word “woman” in the Bible, with all of its uses and descriptions (from…
Does Your Pain Isolate You From the Body of Christ?
Pain is common to all of us. But– have you noticed?– our reactions to it can be wildly different. And I’m convinced– it’s all in how you look at it. When our eyes are on our pain & circumstances: We become disconnected from others (even others in the Body of Christ). No one is “qualified”…