“It takes incredible amount of courage and strength to go against the grain of what people want you to be.” ~Janet Mock, trans advocate, in a documentary about Bruce Jenner’s recent ESPN award No it doesn’t. It doesn’t take strength at all to go your own way. That is what comes naturally. This is the human…
Search Results for: large family
11 Things I’ve Learned About Being a Pastor’s Wife
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…
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…
Fading Beauty, Mom Jeans, & the Realities of Marriage
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…
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…
The Truth About Sex & How It Affects Our Parenting
Due to the Josh Duggar sex abuse revelation, there is a lot of talk. Everyone has their opinions, but we don’t know all the facts, and even if we did, there’s nothing we can do at this point to affect real change in THAT situation. So I don’t want to get into an in-depth conversation where we…
Mom of 7 Shares Baby Gear “Must-Haves” and “Don’t-Needs”
These are the things I return to every time cause they’re just that good. My BrestFriend– Luke’s 3 months old and I’m still using this just about every time I nurse. It left the house with me during the first couple months. It’s the best nursing pillow for a few reasons: it buckles around me & doesn’t…
No, Jimmy Carter, Male Headship Does Not Equal Sex Slavery
First. Why am I talking about this? Don’t I normally talk about mom stuff? Dear Mom in the throes of raising little ones, here’s the thing: YOU’VE GOTTA FIGURE THIS STUFF OUT. Our culture is ramming gender-sameness down our throats. Male and female are exactly the same. You’re not allowed to say boys and girls…
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…