Remember the song Ado Annie sings in Rogers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma? "I Can't Say No"? Some of the lines go like this: "I'm jist a girl who cain't say no; I'm in a turrible fix. I always say, ?Come on, let's go,' jist when I orta say nix!" The song's about relationships, or physical intimacy more specifically, ...

If I say, "vegetable farm," do you think, "passion"? My friend Michelle does. She's a P.R. consultant to a prominent company, and her husband is an engineer. But responding to God's call, they're trading in their jobs and corporate incomes to take over her family's vegetable farm. She loves whole foods, natural living, cooking ? a perfect ...

The house was perfect. The four-bedroom tract house in a kid-friendly subdivision was what our family needed. I loved the retro-feeling kitchen with the big window that looked out at the backyard, and our children were thrilled that the chain-link fence all but guaranteed them a dog.

The one thing that concerned me was the three-foot concrete statue of Mother Mary standing ...

It's happened more than once during the course of a conversation. Somehow, we get to the topic of "formal education" and next we're talking about the Masters degree my husband earned. Discovering that he has one is always of great interest, and after the usual questions as to what subject it's in and from which graduate school it came from, etc., etc., ...

Earlier this summer, my husband, Rafi, was the target of a series of blog "attacks" (Is there a word for this? Blattack? Blogack?). The raging blogger was a woman who wasn't thrilled that Rafi had written letters to the editors (yes, he is one of those people) of some local papers offering a version of a presidential candidate's closed-door event (which ...

Do you do Facebook? Are you LinkedIn? What about a MySpace page, do you have one of those?

I have to admit, I came into the whole social networking scene a little late. I only started a Facebook page this year (gasp!). I honestly just didn't feel like I had the time or energy for it. But after much peer pressure, I gave in. And of course now that I have one, I enjoy ...

Eleven women huddled on the paint-chipped picnic benches of a state park about an hour away from their homes. It was a beautiful day, and we all looked with anticipation on the 24 hours that would follow. Once a year I take our Children's Ministry Staff away on an overnight planning retreat to prepare for the coming ministry year. They were ready to have fun, ready ...

Matthew 5:42 says, "Give to those who ask, and don't turn away from those who want to borrow."

That seems easy enough. Most believers are happy to give to those who have the courage to ask. But what should your response be when the need is obvious, yet the request is unspoken? And, how do you follow Jesus' command to meet the needs of others when you ...

Whew! I'm tired.

All day today I helped with the renovation process at an elementary school not far from our house. My husband has been there all week, and today I left my desk and my computer and joined him in the labor.

And I'm tired.

Now, I'm not new to the construction world. My parents own several rental properties, and when I was a kid, I often spent ...

Two nights ago, I set my kitchen timer for five minutes, sat in a lawn chair on my deck, and stared at the stars.

This was my feeble attempt at self-care, something I'm trying to incorporate into my life. Nearly two weeks ago, someone challenged me to engage in some intentional self-care, in a way that made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I'm surprised at how ...