The Fish Tank

One of my boys takes after my awesome clutziness. He tends to do so in the form of falling off his bike. There's been a few occasions when he's walked through the door all banged up gashes from head-to-toe. We've helped clean his wounds and nurse him back to health. He currently still has a few marks on his arm from a fall that occurred almost two months ago. It takes the body awhile to heal. We just finished Bianca Olthoff's, Play With Fire Bible study. The theme of the study is about how we approach and walk through the fire. Fires are going to come. They are a part of living on this earth. It's what we do when the fire comes that matters. A woman shared her testimony about walking through the fire. She kept talking about getting burned in the fire. That got me to thinking about my son, his injuries, and what it looks like to heal an injury. 'He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son ...

11 days. The journey should have taken 11 days. Instead, they wandered for 40 years. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. God promised them a better life if they followed Moses into the wilderness; a desert journey to a new land flowing with milk and honey full of promise. A journey that should have lasted 11 days turned into 40 years. Why? Because they took their eyes off of God. "For the LORD your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wanderings through this great wilderness These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing." Deuteronomy 2:7 I am currently going through a study that keeps coming back to the Israelites journey through the desert. The focus isn't really about the amount of time they spent in the desert but that's what stood out to me. How often do I wander far beyond what I need? How many times do get lost because I lose sight of my focus? How much time, energy, and emotion have I waste...

I sat on the seat of the Green Machine. It’s like a big kid’s big wheel. He was crying and I couldn’t console him. He needed to get it all out. As I listened, I reverted back to ten year old me remembering the hurts wanting to take it all from him. Only I couldn’t. That wasn’t my job. I kept praying in my head desperately searching for the right thing to say. He kept crying. When he finally took a breath, I had a million things to say but couldn’t speak. I wanted to wrap him in bubble wrap or move him to a farm to take him away from it all. Does anyone have either of those? I am in the market. But that’s not my job. When I told him I couldn’t take this from him even though I wanted to, he asked me why. Why couldn’t the one he looks to for safety, protection, comfort, and security release him of the burdens he carried? My only answer was, “That isn’t my job.” “Train a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 I don’t know how to do this parentin...

The school where my boys' attend started a new program this year. The program is called, "Genius Hour." The purpose of the program is to get kids to work together to create something that may help someone else. The goal is to get students excited about something that interests them, build on that idea with a small community in their classroom, brainstorm ways this could help their community, and the world. The idea is that when we work together, we can bring positive change to those close to us and those far away. This genius hour has even spawned an opportunity for our students and town to come together to raise funds to build a school in Ghana. Pretty cool if you ask me. "As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and ask...

We've got one chick in our flock who veers more on the stubborn side of things. He's fiercely passionate and leans towards the emotionally illogical from time-to-time. If you know me or my family, I will leave it to you to determine which little monkey this describes and which parent he most mirrors. It shouldn't be that difficult. I remember when he was young and I thought I needed to correct his behavior; change it. I had this assumption that he was somehow flawed and I was to right the wrong. Soon into my parenting journey, I had a friend struggling with her son in similar areas. I will never forget something she said. She told me it wasn't her job to change him. God created her son that way. Her calling was to guide him and train him up in the way he was created not change who he was designed to be. That was so freeing to me as a mom and refocused me to see the extraordinary child God had blessed my husband and I with. Isn't it like God to send someone into yo...

We talk a lot about how difficult it is to raise girls. There's so much to be feared when raising girls. Society tells us girls have to fight harder, work more, and ultimately beat the boys in order to get anywhere in life. Men will oppress our daughters sexualizing their every move. Our girls need protecting. While I don't doubt it is tough to raise up a daughter, it is equally challenging to raise a son. Can we take a pause from the feminist movement and give light to the audacious task of raising boys? Our daughters will only benefit from raising valiant men. I have three boys. I come from a family of girls. Seriously. I have one male cousin. My husband is the only boy out of five siblings. Although I was a tomboy as a kid, I have no idea what it means or feels like to be a boy. Not a clue. My boys do things that absolutely baffle me. For instance, why-oh-why can boys not keep their hands to themselves? Why is everything a competition? Who cares who gets to the bus stop ...

Can I be vulnerable and raw for a minute? I want to be honest with y'all. You see, I am learning that I don't have all the answers. While I don't have all the answers, my response to so much these days is, "I don't know." Do you feel it, too? Do you feel like everything is circling around you and you can't grasp at any of it. You hear the arguments. You listen to the debates. And while you may lean to one side, the opposition can make so much sense. So, there you sit. Stuck in the middle. Where ever the middle lands. I am an educated woman. I am also a Christian. I like to call myself a forever student constantly seeking to learn more: more about my faith, more about parenting, more about my spouse and marriage, more about others who believe differently than me, more about opposing views. I cannot soak it all in fast enough. I have become my father who used to listen to his little hand-held radio only I have earbuds in listening to podcasts on my cell ...