I’ve been a Pastor’s wife for three and a half years. The first two of those years, my husband was an administrative pastor, which was a very different thing from the counseling and discipleship pastoral role he has now. It’s not been very long, really, but it’s been long enough to have learned a few things and made…
Category: Grow as a Disciple
Navigating the Challenges of Real Life, Online
If you share everything, you’re an exhibitionist. If you share nothing, you’re closed-off and unapproachable. If you share too many good things, you’re fake. If you share too many bad things, you’re a whiner. It’s hard to get the balance right, isn’t it? Online interactions don’t always lend themselves to complete transparency. And even when…
How I Balance Online Transparency and Discretion
For my part, and I haven’t done it perfect, I’ve tried to do what felt most wise and honoring to God, honoring to others, and gave me freedom to care for myself, in each stage of online “life.” Here are three questions/principles I’ve used to think through these things: #1- HOW CAN I PUBLICLY SHARE IN…
Christian Woman, Are You a Wise Teacher Yet?
Do you remember this rebuke in Hebrews? “Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God’s revelation again. You need milk, not solid food.” (Heb 5:12) Can you imagine hearing this? I’m afraid too many churches… and too many women in our churches……
June Mailbag: Courtship? College? Confidence as a Mom?
Each month I get a number of e-mails and private comments asking interesting questions that may be applicable to more than just the person asking. My plan is to select a few thought-provoking and practical questions, keep the asker & identifying details anonymous, and share my answers with all of you, at the end of each month. Let’s…
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…
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…
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…
10 Things I’ve Said to My Kids in the Last Week That I Need To Hear, Too
Today I got to thinking that, in the last week, I’ve said several things to my children that I should take to heart. Here’s 10 that came to mind. ABOUT HEART ATTITUDE– “That heart attitude will only make you more and more bitter. What can you choose to be cheerful about instead of grumping?” ABOUT…