Growing up on a 100-acre cattle and horse farm, I learned early on how to put in a fence post. First you needed gloves to protect your hands from blisters and thorny-pieces of wood. Then you’d take the post-hole digger and begin at the spot designated for the fence post. As a weakling like me, you jumped on the top of the post-hole digger. Jumping over and over and over, you would work the post-hole digger down. Then carefully, you would open the post-hole digger and hold the dirt you have displaced and set it outside and beside the hole. …
Counting the Cost
Lately, I have been praying over our diligence as a family. There are so many ways God has entrusted us–with our families and helping others, whom He places on our path. And EACH ONE really matters. So to begin being a good steward and spurring you on to being one, as well, I want to challenge you to due diligence–being faithful with little or much. Here is my old faithful method of meal planning. This may be something for you to implement in your own home. Or perhaps, it will spark some new ideas with what you are already doing. Every …
Come Away With Me
Every week or so, I feel a strong tug on my heart, a prompting from the Lord, to COME and GET AWAY with Him for awhile. I may be dropping my kids off at school in the morning (it may have taken 14 years, but we are finally out of the baby/toddler/preschool stage!), and I hear His voice, quietly beckoning me to come on a walk with Him. So I do! I grab my journal and Bible (and camera!)—sometimes even buy a nice cup of coffee for the time—and I drive to a nearby park called Fox Run. It is …
Love is Not a Doormat
Doormats are handy things–dusting off the snow before entering a somewhat-clean floor, wiping off the mud from the now-melted snow, stomping your tennis shoes to get the ever-living sand out of them, especially if you live by the beach. Doormats are weathered. Doormats can be pretty and decorative–that is until the above happens and they become grubby. Doormats are lasting. We usually keep the same doormat by each door until we move, then we finally throw the things out, like old rags. Sometimes, whether it’s learned behavior, taught behavior or even caught behavior, we decide that Christians must in every …
Welcome Mat: The Key to Teaching Your Children Thankfulness
The first time I remember making it a heart-goal to teach our children appreciation began this way… At our son’s 6th birthday party, during the gift opening portion: Son: (wildly tearing at the paper) What is it? Oh it’s a battleship. My Grammy already got me this. Then, he opened the next gift. Son: (pulling off the bow and paper, tossing the card aside, unread): A Nerf gun! My Grammy got me one of these just last week. In front of all the parents and children watching, I wanted to die then and there on the spot. My son needed …
What I Say in the Silences
“Wilderness and desert will sing joyously, the badlands will celebrate and flower— Like the crocus in spring, bursting into blossom, a symphony of song and color. Mountain glories of Lebanon—a gift. Awesome Carmel, stunning Sharon—gifts. God’s resplendent glory, fully on display. God awesome, God majestic.” Isaiah 35:8 (Message) It’s a rainy morning in East Texas, washing away thick pollen, which is running in a yellow stream to the street. I grab my bag of quiet-time materials, toy basket and gently lift Noah, carrying him to his exersaucer on our covered, back porch—a perfect set-up for the day. Noah squeals delightfully …