Last fall, we took our 12-year-old son away for a weekend of hiking and discussion while we worked through the Passport 2 Purity material together. When we went for our longest hike, it was a blustery day with heavy winds. As we went deeper down into the canyon, the pines at the top of the hill…
Author: Jess Connell
The Opposite of the Titus 2 Woman
In 2011, I took my first biblical counseling class, and one session focused on the “Anti-Psalm.” The goal was to better understand what a text is saying by carefully thinking through the exact opposite meaning. It can be insightful to see the “opposite” of a text, and gives an excellent way to clarify the actual meaning. I previously did this with Proverbs 31. Let’s…
Do You Multi-Task on Purpose?
We women tend to be multi-taskers. We try to squeeze as much as we can into a given moment. On any given day, a mom can be seen: carrying the groceries in (loaded down like a donkey), calling instructions to the kids over our shoulder, using the tiniest sliver of our index finger (otherwise weighed…
Writing a Blog: Meaningful or Insignificant?
Living something brings a keen awareness of how others view it. Until you are a stay-home mom, you may not realize how others demean that work by using words like “only” or “just” to describe it. Until my husband became a pastor, I didn’t realize the walls that sometimes are built in people’s hearts (as evidenced on their face) the…
The Perfect Homeschool Day
You know what we had this morning? We had the perfect homeschooling day. Well… …perfect *for us.* Probably not anything close to what you’re imagining in your head right now. You DO know that the “perfect homeschool” doesn’t exist, right? But here’s what our perfect homeschooling day looks like: We make forward progress in areas…
Do Your Kids Recognize Your Authority?
Elizabeth Krueger, mother of 10, and author of Raising Godly Tomatoes, is also a horse owner. She recently shared some great thoughts about training horses to recognize a rightful authority and how it can be similar with children. I thought Elizabeth’s observations were extremely insightful and she graciously agreed to let me share them here:…
11 Ways Mothers Change the World
If you are one who: loves Christ, desires to see people come to worship and know Him, and longs to find her purpose in the world, Let me commend to you the role of mother. If you are a young woman who: has been told all the horrors and sob stories of colic and tantrums…
What If the Littles Grow Up Different From the Big Kids?
One of the things I was at least mildly concerned about at first, in regard to having a big family, was the common observation that in a large family, the younger children often grow up in a quite different way from how the older children were raised. Accusations sometimes go along these lines: You were…
50 Things I Love About Newborns
Last week, I had baby #7, and 7 babies in, I can say this: newborns are AMAZING. Each and every one. Here are some of the things I love, in no particular order: How they smell. The way they punch themselves in the face with both fists when they sneeze. Their little noises— coos, sighs, satisfied…
The Proverbs Woman (No, Not THAT One!)
When prompted to think of “the Proverbs Woman”, anyone who has read a handful of books, skimmed a few blogs, or heard a sermon or two aimed at Christian women will automatically call to mind the Proverbs 31 woman. Land investor, wise guru, accomplished seamstress, careful shopper, generous philanthropist, and dependable wife and mother all rolled into one,…