When our family (with 7 kids ages 14 & under) backpacked the 93-mile Wonderland Trail, one of the biggest considerations we faced was how much, and what, gear to bring. Here’s how we made it work: BACKPACKS Each person carried their own pack: Doug: Osprey 85-liter Aether Jess: REI Piggyback toddler/child carrier (we tried soft packs & Kelty…

  I just took another Myers-Briggs assessment. Every time I do it, I feel fear that my letters will change, but no… They haven’t changed since college. 🙂 The numbers strongly confirmed: by this measure, I’m still an ENTP. E= Extroverted (“extraverted” to the MBTI purist) N= Intuition T= Thinking P= Perceiving Here’s one description: Prophet: You are…

You are a theologian. And I am too. We may each be a good one, a subpar one, or a heretic, but we can’t get away from *having* a theology and bringing it to the table with each day of mothering.   Who matters most in our theology? For many moms, the person who matters… […]

Sometimes we cry over personal pain or frustration. Sometimes over relational distress. Sometimes over an unexpectedly hard day. Sometimes my tears are understandable and justified.  Sometimes I’ve cried selfish tears, or over dumb stuff. But there is some of my crying that my kids have seen that (I’m convinced) does good for their souls… It rises up…

In John 6, Jesus is teaching a massive crowd, and meal time arrives. But it looks hopeless. It was too late, and would be too expensive, to run to the town/store to feed such a large group. This happens in our home from time to time. I always think of Sally Clarkson, who said something like […]

  Q: my son Caleb, who will be 6 next month. He is an extremely outgoing, active, almost hyperactive, little boy who talks non-stop and (perhaps because he’s the oldest; perhaps because that’s how he’s wired), is obsessed with the idea of being “the boss.” Overall, he’s actually a relatively compliant child, but lately I’ve noticed… […]

Have you heard the message? Every Valentine’s Day, our culture screams that romance is: teddy bears chocolates a pink-and-red-and-white card flowers a date night written on a particular calendar square Not that there’s anything wrong with any of these, but it does make me wonder. How many women and men are being held hostage to a…

First: If you are suffering under spiritual abuse, or have recently left a spiritually abusive situation, I want to encourage you– not minimize or question what you experienced. For the purposes of this article, spiritual abuse is defined (by Got Questions) as: To “abuse” is to use something or someone to bad effect or for […]

This question recently came in: I was thinking about what you spoke about [in this podcast episode, called “Lean In & Learn from Other Women”] and the thing that stuck out most to me was how you learn most by living life with others. While I completely agree, I am stuck wondering HOW to make […]

Important moments of life are often overrun with busyness, planning, stress, and “must-dos.” And the big “goodbyes” of life are often overshadowed by sorrow, a busy schedule, and stresses like packing, funeral planning, or travel plans. The expression of genuine emotion gets overlooked, stuffed down, or put off for a “later” that never arrives. Here…

Well, so here it is. After Josh Duggar molested a number of girls and got caught a number of times, he went on TV, got himself a wife, and sold purity and courtship and not kissing until marriage. We all watched as his dad gave him a purity talk, which we now know, he did solely for the camera, because he…

“She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. . . . She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant.” Proverbs 31: 16-18, 24 As we discuss this passage, keep in mind that […]

Last summer, we hiked the Wonderland Trail with our 7 kids (ages 14 down to 18 months). The Wonderland is a 93-mile loop trail around Mount Rainier, with 22,000 feet of elevation gain. People have taken anywhere from 20 hours to 15 days to hike the entire thing. We did it in 12 days. For […]

Yesterday our family drove to Mount St. Helens, the famous volcano in Washington state that erupted in 1980. The eruption enacted complete devastation in the blast area. It “blew down so many trees that the toll was calculated at 4 billion board feet, the amount of lumber to build 300,000 two-bedroom homes.” The blast zone […]