So anyways, I need to tell you about this neon sign I made. For my kids. For Christmas. Which makes no apparent sense. And also I should tell you why the couch I reupholstered is no longer in my living room, and why it has a tear in the arm (look close – it’s there), and why it’s looking generally a bit more dilapidated than it has any right to look after such a short space of time. Read More
I think I’m finally ready to share the dramatic story of my laundry. If you are a person who has never struggled with the laundry, this is not for you. If the laundry is something that you are afflicted by, I hope that in my story you can find a little hope. This may turn into a very long blog post. I warned you.
Of course I’m joking about this, except not really. The laundry is something that I am not naturally good at. I mean I am fine with doing it – the part that I struggled with for years was the always doing it. Then sometimes I struggled with half doing it. Churning loads through, but somehow always having baskets of clean laundry crumpling themselves up around the house. There was a long time when one basket was always about half full of lost socks and other oddments, with loads of other clothes cycling over the top of it.
And we all know what even a moment’s pause on the laundry results in. Devastation. A school morning with nothing but a pair of your sister’s leggings. A Sunday morning that involves febreeze on the clothes. Sadness, panic, and fear. Bad smells. Crying late at night. At some point I noticed that I didn’t want to wash any clothes I didn’t like to see my children in. This is not to say that I am not doing that all the time still, but I noticed a problem, and took steps to change it. Read More
Here’s a thought experiment: Think of all the opportunities we have each day in our homes to bestow kindness. Call it domestic kindness. We don’t have to look far to find hundreds of ways to be kind.
1. “And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you’ (Eph. 4:32). From this verse we can see two aspects of kindness, but let’s look first at how kindness is forgiving. How many times in a day can we extend forgiveness? Sometimes it is asked for; sometimes it isn’t. But each time we forgive, we are being kind.
2. And from the same verse, how many times in a day can we be tenderhearted? How many opportunities arise that call for sympathy or pity? How often can we give a kiss, a hug, a word of tenderness, a band-aid, a glass of water? Tender hearts respond in kindness; hard hearts can’t be bothered. Tender hearts are up in the night with sick kids or hungry babies.
3. I Corinthians 13:4 begins with this: “Love suffers long and is kind…” Kindness doesn’t watch the clock with a tapping Read More
Red alert, folks. I’m being a tidge pompous. I think I just may have solved one of the great conundrums of the ages. Nate had that whole Shroud of Turin thing . . . and I’ve been feeling the pressure to keep up with my little brother. This is my moment. I’m expecting National Geographic to call any minute.
The Problem: How to keep the bedspread from wadding up inside the duvet cover, combined with the added riddle of how to keep your sanity and your sanctification whilst inserting the bedspread into the duvet cover.
I’ve sewn more duvet covers over the years than I care to think about, and I’ve always had a love / hate thing going on there. Read More
I was recently telling my husband how surprised I have been to realize how many young Christian college women are feeling at sea when it comes to understanding what it is they are doing. What is an education for? We used to view an education as preparation for life. Now it is viewed as preparation for a career.
My husband pointed out that there are no cultural cliches to reinforce the calling of the wife and mother at home. All the cultural cliches today are the savvy, sexy career woman, married or not. And it doesn’t much matter how many sermons women hear if they don’t have any cultural reinforcement. They need to see the value and potency of the calling of wife and mother, and they are not going to find this in films, sit-coms, or magazines. Women have been successfully driven out of their homes in our culture, creating a vast vacuum in Read More
This is the speech I delivered to the Trinitas Christian School Class of 2010 at their commencement Thursday night in Pensacola, Florida.
Good evening, Mr. Trotter, board of trustees, faculty, parents, grandparents, students of the Trinitas graduating class of 2010, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be your commencement speaker tonight. It is an honor to address this graduating class of eleven young women. Thank you, Mr. Trotter, and thank you, senior class, for inviting me to be here. It has been a pleasure to get to know some of you, and Doug and I have enjoyed your gracious hospitality.
I’d like to speak to you young ladies tonight about your future (now that’s a novel idea for a commencement address, don’t you think?) but, more to the point, the kind of women you want to be in that future.
You live in a time when women of all ages are hungry for purpose and direction in their lives. And it’s not just the young women who are flailing about trying to find their bearings. Even Christian women can be confused. The lies of the feminist story have had more than a whole generation in which to ripen and bear fruit, and it turns out, it is a bitter and barren fruit. Read More