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……
Mama, Are You Thinking Ahead?
One major struggle of women who have a hard time transitioning to the “empty nest” time seems to be that they never really thought their kids would be gone. They didn’t really think of their kids as future adults. Parenting wasn’t thought about in terms of raising MEN and WOMEN. It was just “my baby”, “my little…
Do You Treat Your Husband Worse Than a Stranger?
Death and life are in the power of the tongue Proverbs 18:21 You may remember; my husband and I sometimes do marital counseling together. It’s heartbreaking to hear from a husband at his wits end. He comes downcast. Disheartened. He wants to be faithful to her; he wants to please her. He’s not perfect, of course, but he longs for…
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 Can I Have a Successful Blog While Raising Little Kids?
The question comes from time to time: How can I have a successful blog while raising little ones? And here’s my honest answer. It may not be a popular one, but it is my real, honest, from-my-heart answer. BLOGGING WHEN YOU HAVE LITTLE ONES When I had all/only littles, I wrote only when I had…
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…
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…