Faith

Gratitude sits with you differently in November. Makes you feel toasty, like the hygge of fire-side reading. Slows your steps, your heart, your soul. You welcome her to your table with a carefully laid-out china and your best chair. In November, gratitude is the easy-to-get-along-with friend. Her company is pleasant and light. She shares gentle wisdom. Notes the gift of long sleep, chilled air in the lungs, sun hanging steady. Pulls you to a crimson-red maple leaf. “God loves you like that,” she says, eyes dancing. She’s a constant companion, but she’s not pesky. Doesn’t require much. Maybe a photo snapped once a day. A short caption written for Instagram or Facebook. Or a hand-penned journal line. She’s mostly invitation, though we

When we first start dating someone, we pay more attention to how we are perceived and how we carry ourselves. Our makeup is done, our hair is brushed and our legs are shaved. We use proper manners at dinner and try to hide the snort when we laugh. As we grow in comfort with our boyfriend, we make messy buns our go-to and a burp or two might slip out. When that relationship enters the marriage phase, all bets are off. Bathroom doors aren’t always closed. Morning breath is a regular occurrence. And the veil of propriety is lifted away to show our true authentic self. A lot of times we tend to treat our time with Christ as those first days

It’s that time of year when our graduating high school seniors are preparing for college or the next giant step in their young lives. And although there is excitement about those next steps, some mamas are struggling. Their worlds are about to shift in monumental ways: their babies are untethering the apron strings and these women are wondering how they will fill the gap that remains. An impending sense of loss is creeping into their very uncertain hearts. Loss Leads to Change Loss can visit us through so many different paths. It collides with the woman whose little one passes before they experience the brightness of noonday. It strikes the heart of the wife whose husband leaves, causing her to wonder what

I’ve been the young mom who trades multitasking in the office for barely fitting in a shower and clearing the dishwater all before the end of my husband’s work day. The mom trying all The Happiest Baby on the Block tips, like the baby-straddles-your-forearm-while-you-gently-jiggle-her-head trick to make her sleepy. My arm would fall asleep before my baby did, and when I’d lay her in her crib, slowly inch my arm free, and tiptoe out of the room, it would be mere minutes before she’d start to cry. No joke, my firstborn never napped. Also true is that I lost a piece of me in those years of just making it through the day. Being a new mom was all-consuming, so I stopped

We remodeled bathrooms last winter, taking out an upstairs hall and adding its space to one bathroom, gutting a second, and updating a third. It was a project Alejandro promised to finish by late February, just in time for a women’s retreat scheduled to take place there. But February came and went, and the retreat got put on the back burner, while installing vanities, lights, and faucets became front and center. I let the pastors know we’d have to postpone the retreat until summer. But I got to thinking: The winter retreat topic was more suited to gathering around a fireplace than around our porch, so I sent an email to the powers-that-be about another idea more suitable for summer. When I