This year, I’ve kicked off 2017 with questions to help us pursue our relationship with the most potential for fulfillment and gut-level happiness, no matter what’s around the corner. (Check out the previous two sets here and here!)
This year, I’ve kicked off 2107 with questions to help us pursue our relationship with the most potential for fulfillment and gut-level happiness, no matter what’s around the corner. (Check out the previous set here!)
Do you remember the moment that first made you wonder if He truly loved you?
I don’t know if I remember the first one. But I remember the first big one, and I can trace the crooked, faltering lines of the rest of them through my past. (Fear has its way of searing itself upon the conscience.)
For me, unbelief usually blossoms as fear; as worry. My unbelief stems directly, stealthily, from its taproot in my heart. He loves me? He loves me not?read more
This year, I’m gonna party like it’s 2107 with a few questions to help us pursue our relationship with the most potential for fulfillment and gut-level happiness, no matter what’s around the corner. I’m raising my glass: to the One who fills every soul-hole this year. Cheers, friends!
In light of the series on Spiritual Disciplines for Real Families, I’m hoping this easy, often printable tools will help weave prayer into the fabric of your family.
If you love this kind of thing, try signing up in the right sidebar for the first chapter of Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write On Your Kids’ Hearts.It’s packed with ideas like this–and connects to more printable resources on this site to help you teach spiritual life skills!
This printable poster makes it easy for kids to learn to pray through their day with God. (If you’re new to this prayer, don’t let the name intimidate you! Here’s an introduction to this ancient, traditional, contemplative prayer.)read more
There’s a bit of irony in this post for me. Currently my family and I—yes, all four children—are residing at my in-laws’ during our stint in the States. I’m still schooling them during the day. Yes, that’s just about as “alone” as it sounds.
Some of you with kids wrapped around your kneecaps might be thinking, Solitude. I think this could be my favorite discipline yet.
Moment of truth: When I was a young mom, a baby on my hip and three toddlers/preschoolers welded around my knees, rising early for a quiet time simply did not happen. Part of it was that Mommy-radar kids possess—the one that somehow senses She Has Awakened, and it is now time for the pitter-patter of little feet to commence. Part of it was sheer exhaustion, nursing through the night or pregnant for literally five years; a REM cycle is simply too key to being a happy mommy. So I would fold open my Bible at night, after the last drink of water/trip to the bathroom/I found an owie on my toe routine. And just before my eyelids fell in exhaustion.
But now that I have passed that precious and grueling season of survival, there is something magnetic about curling in the quiet with my God, as the gray light turns softly pink, and before my now-taller children shuffle out for breakfast. It has become my “me” time. It is my time to be embraced, much as I seek to envelop my kids in their bedheads and still-warm PJ’s as they emerge. The Psalmist writes it succinctly:atisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Most of the time, I think like that this place gurgles with life. Someday, I think, I will be sad when my house is silent more often than it is loud.
But the current season is saturated with boy sound-effects of all varieties and odors; um, arguing; constant requests (I count an average three “Mom!” calls whenever I attempt to use the bathroom); and the din of my generally rowdy offspring. Quiet can be a hard-earned commodity.
It’s pretty much the only time, I think, when I should talk more than I listen.
You’ve been, there, I know: times like my morning a few days ago, when I tucked my feet beside me on the back porch, cup of tea in hand–mind splintered, floating in a deluge of concerns. I’d curled up to pray, but prayers kept colliding with the flotsam in my mind. I felt adrift; perhaps even a bit unmoored. Pretty sure I was just staring for a good portion of the time.