By the time Moses marched the Israelites out of Egypt, they had gone through a lot: Mass murder of their baby sons and harsh treatment as...

For Read Across America Day, my youngest son was supposed to dress up like a book character. We had plenty of notice about this activity,...

Last week, I went into a store and left with a really interesting life lesson. The woman who worked there and I were discussing the...

Ezra, age 5, already 6 baby teeth gone! Our youngest son lost his last tooth today. There was little fanfare, just him showing me a giant-looking molar resting at the bottom of a plastic sandwich bag. It’s been loose for a few weeks, and he’s been asking everyone to stick their fingers in his mouth and test its wiggliness—a great idea in the middle of cold and flu season. When he joined our family at age 5, he had already lost six teeth, so the Tooth Fairy wasn’t really a bi

It’s my pleasure to work at a Mothers’ Day Out program at my church two days a week. Within the walls of our little preschool, I get to...

I heard a story on the radio a few months ago about a woman named Maris Blechner. Her first son died just after childbirth, then she...

How did I end up sitting on this metal bench next to a Customer Service desk? I just wanted two $25 gift cards, but instead the cashier...

One of life’s greatest joys is a good old fashioned potluck supper. I have vivid memories of these meals in the various churches my...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minnie_Pearl_1965.JPG When I was 7 or 8 years old, my sisters and I were in Davis-Kidd Bookstore...

Since November 9, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this moment in history has reappeared for a little...

Like a lot of parents, I spend quite a bit of time driving to, sitting during and driving home from ball practice. I could try to figure...

I’m super excited about these end-of-the-chapter discussion questions and creative writing prompts for my novel BELIEVE! Just click the...

Very early on a Sunday morning on a remote Florida highway, my husband and I noticed a road sign we’d never seen close to the coast...

When your first baby is actually a set of twins, you figure out pretty quickly that it’s going to be difficult to create one-on-one time with them. At least that was the case for us. We had our twin daughters first, followed by our older son three years later. Then our youngest son came to us nearly 11 years after big brother was born. I was able to have those moments with my boys—grocery shopping trips, bike rides, ordinary weekdays—while their older siblings were in school

For years, I’ve been fascinated by stained glass windows. Other than the obvious reasons for their appeal—the way they add an interesting...

When we remodeled our master bathroom several years ago, I decided we needed to have some kind of clock in there to let my husband and I...

On Saturday, I helped my husband dismantle the wooden play set our kids no longer use. When we first bought it, a dozen years ago, it was...

A friend recently told me about taking a group of Texas teens to Nashville for a mission trip. As they sat outside at an evening devotional, the group became fascinated when one by one fireflies emerged from the grass and shrubbery to soar around the darkening sky. The majority of the mission team had never seen fireflies before. My friend showed them how to catch the insects without harming them and how to capture them in empty water bottles (from which they eventually relea

I aspire to have a magnificent garden someday. In my imagination, I grow heirloom tomatoes, delicate lettuces and beans with cranberry...

I have the great blessing of leading the preschoolers at my church in praise time on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. We bring out...

When Ezra, our African-born son, first came to America, he was 5-years old. In his first five years, he had developed an understanding of...

Parenting is hard. This is the eternal truth I was pondering as I rubbed the back of my ankle right after my older son slammed into it...

As we were driving to a soccer tournament over the weekend, my husband and I witnessed a (sort of) significant milestone for our family...

There’s plenty of talk about standardized testing these days. Do they make kids too stressed? Do we test enough? Too much? Are they an...