Our country, apparently, is lonely. More than one-fifth of Americans report often or always feeling lonely or socially isolated. As a Christian, I see it this way: God made us to be in community. I …
A Surprising Way to Reduce Anxiety
(Especially When You're Crazy Busy) The end of the school year is just nuts. Band concerts, graduations, open houses, baseball playoffs, soccer tournaments, award ceremonies, end-of-year banquets, …
Wasting Time
Moms tend to be preoccupied with time. Or more precisely, with time management. The moms in the MOPS group I coordinate ask for a time management speaker every semester, worried by the way the days …
You Don’t Have to Do It All. Nor Should You.
The night before the first day of school I was lying in the bathtub, indulging in a minor panic attack about all the things I needed to do before everyone headed out in the morning. Someone knocked …
How to Do Nothing
All three of my kids are now in school (!) and so sometimes I really look forward to Monday mornings, when I can finally GET THINGS DONE. Anyone else relate? Recently, I had a week planned where I was …
First Days and New Beginnings
It was a big first day of school for my three kids this year--kindergarten, sixth grade, and ninth grade. Three different schools, three different start times. I thought I'd gotten up early enough, …
Making the Most of Your Family Time
It’s official: online-only school in the fall for all three of my children. So we’ll be spending even more time together. Yay? We’ve had an awful lot of togetherness since this pandemic …
Find Your Flow
When I speak to groups of moms with young children, I ask them to close their eyes and think of the last time they felt themselves relax into the moment so much that they lost all sense of …
Mom, I Don’t Pray
“I don’t pray,” my ten-year-old son said the other day at the dinner table, and my heart just about stopped. “What?” I said. “What do you mean? Why not? What happened?” My head filled with even more …
Daily Tasks Are Real Life
My daughter is 15 months old. What that means for my house is that there is no safe place to keep the toilet brush. That as I put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, she is joyfully unloading them …
Have You Affirmed Your Family Today?
Last week at dinner my younger son casually turned to me and said, “These are the things I like about you, Mommy, that you play Legos with me, that you play puppies with me, that you hug me and that …
Driving Like a Christian
Today I actually stuck out my tongue at another driver. He blew around me and then cut into my lane, and I was so annoyed that’s how I responded. It could have been worse, I know, but …
