Originally written in March 2009. So teach us to number our daysthat we may get a heart of wisdom.Return, O Lord! How long?Have pity on your servants!Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,and…
I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but it has to me often. A parent relates a disobedient or otherwise disciplinable antic of their child, and comments, “I had to leave the room because I couldn’t help laughing.” Nine times out of ten I simply can’t relate; I find myself giving a…
Whether it be Chinese-Are-Superior Mothers or French-Are-Superior Mothers, these foreign parenting-commentators point out that American mothers are afraid to be in charge, and that’s why they raise hellions. That is a particular side of the ditch, but it is not my temptation. My husband and I are both rather authoritarian parents, and happy and comfortable…
Originally written and posted in 2007. Actually, I think little children are more like magnifying glasses than mirrors. I have been truly amazed, startled, and ashamed as it has become more and more clear to me that the attitude and behavior problems my children display is only a childish mimicry of my own attitude and…
Hitting a decade birthday is a good time to pause and reflect, and though mine is still a few months away, I am pausing and reflecting. While I am in the midst of raising children, my parents, in-laws, and their peers are reaching milestones of their own: caring for their parents. It is now not…
I mentioned previously that the Wilsons’ advice helped us get our marriage off to a strong start. The biggest and best piece of advice they gave was to never leave one another while out of fellowship. That isn’t that you can’t leave until you agree, but you can’t leave while you have unconfessed and unforgiven…
While in college at University of Idaho, I went to a small group Bible study for college girls that met in Nancy Wilson’s living room. In high school, a few of the things she had written in her books rubbed me the wrong way, but here, set in context and said face-to-face, they started making…
And Now, We’re Thirty (almost) I wonder, perhaps, if I needed this refresher, this reminder of why I am doing what I am doing, particularly because this is the life I lived on the child-end and now live second-generation: homeschooling, stay-at-home mama. When I became a resentful, proud adolescent, I remember my parents telling me…
I wasn’t yet tuned into the right questions when I picked up The Sane Woman’s Guide to Raising a Large Family. Knox was a baby, I was sleep-deprived, I thought maybe I could pick up a few new tips to help cope. I don’t remember any new hints or tips. It’s not that they weren’t…
I am living the life I always wanted. I grew up the oldest of 7, homeschooled, reading Anne of Green Gables and heaps of sappy Christian romance novels. To be honest, I never did even comprehend what problem modern women had with traditional, biblical womanhood. Not only did I swallow the conservative family party line…