by Janel Breitenstein | Aug 14, 2018 | closeness and intimacy, faith, fear, humility, time alone with God
I was a freshman in college leaving for a road trip. The call must have been from my mom. I don’t remember. All I know is that my youth group’s intern from the summer before–coincidentally engaged to another intern–had been in a fatal car...
by Janel Breitenstein | Aug 10, 2018 | Africa, children, faith, humility, infographics, kids, poverty
The other night after small group, I experienced the cutest thing all week: The daughter of one of our members—who, when she wears pigtails, reminds me of a blonde, blue-eyed version of Boo from Monsters Inc. Our host home had The Most Patient Cat in the World, who...
by Janel Breitenstein | Aug 7, 2018 | fear, Gospel, identity, relationships, time alone with God
Author’s note: This is another one of those posts (like most of mine?) that I write from the thick of it. As in, not from mastery. As in, I was dealing with this last night. Turns out I not only get the “shoulds” with myself; I get them with other...
by Janel Breitenstein | Aug 2, 2018 | challenging, children, Culture, Family, guest post, kids, Parenting, tweens and teens
Okay, one of my least favorite job descriptions of motherhood: Media Nazi. ‘M I the only one who feels like I’m constantly saying “nope”? Because see, I want more than “Mom said no. Again” for my kids’ worldview. When they get...
by Janel Breitenstein | Jul 31, 2018 | children, difficulty, discouragement, emotion, encouragement, enduring love, failure, faith, kids, motherhood, Parenting, tweens and teens
There was still snow regularly fluffing up the ground when I pulled out my seed starter this past winter. I enlisted my kids to extract seeds from little packages with technicolor images, and I was a little giddy with the vivid pictures in my head of a blooming porch...
