A few nights back (in fact, in the midst of Hurricane Irene, an inauspicious choice) William said, "Mom, can you take my passy away?" (He still uses a pacifier to go to sleep, and if I were to let him walk around with it all day long, he'd carry it willingly.)

"Sure, William," ...

I've written here on a number of occasions about my hopes (and fears) for Penny when it comes to making friends. I try to arrange playdates. I talk to her teachers about her social skills. We practice "using her words" and looking people in the eye. We bemoan how often she just ...

Lots more information to come as the week progresses, including an excerpt and a video clip. But for today–you can order your copy of A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith Expectations and a Little Girl Named Penny. Please spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, through email and ...

Who knew that a tropical storm could do this much damage? So here I sit, by candlelight, eighteen hours after we lost power (I'm writing this at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday night, but I can't actually post it now because we don't have Internet capabilities at the moment), wondering ...

Siddharta Mukherjee wrote a column for the New York Times Magazine about his experience watching funeral pyres in India as a boy, his experience as an oncologist watching Americans die of cancer, and the problems with the American way of death. The contrast between a body ...

I've always assumed that if I ever wrote and published a book, I would then embark upon a cross-country book tour. Peter envisioned a Winnebago with the kids in the back, stopping in every major city from Boston to Seattle, down the West Coast, and back again. We've abandoned ...

In John 10:10, Jesus says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

It's easy to settle for a less-than-full life, whether by assuming that relationships will end in disappointment, or that God doesn't ...

Our daughter Penny was born five and a half years ago. She was our first child, and we found out two hours after she was born that she probably had an extra 21st chromosome. For us, the first twenty-four hours were the hardest, although it took me about a year to fully receive ...

I wrote last week about a disturbing article in The New York Times Magazine that related stories of women who chose to "reduce" their pregnancies from twins to singletons. From my vantage point, the article raises two sets of ethical questions–one surrounding the ethics of abortion ...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a review of Jenell Paris' book, The End of Sexuality. I talked about celibacy as an option for Christians who believe that they cannot engage in same-sex physical relationships. Some of you, with kindness and respect, expressed incredulity about celibacy. ...

William

Penny is sitting on William's face.

He pushes her off. "Penny, my head is not a playground."

She nods. Good point.

Marilee

Marilee wakes us up at 1:30 a.m. Peter attends to her. From my half-awake state, I hear her say "Ha Da Da." It may well have been a loud exhale and then ...

I just read a book by a pastor of ours from our college days, Ian Morgan Cron. It's a story of conversion to Christianity. It's a story of deep hurt and longing for an at times abusive, at times absent, father. It's a story of a little boy growing up. It's a story of God's faithfulness. ...

Peter sometimes points out that we tend to do things with an extra level of intensity. Sometimes that's intentional–when he runs 16 miles in the sand, for instance, or when I decide I need to make sure that unusual words aren't repeated more than twice in the course of my book. ...

I hope to take the time to write more about this in the next few days, but for now I simply want to draw your attention to an article from the New York Times magazine about "pregnancy reductions." The article (The Two Minus One Pregnancy) describes the increasingly popular decision ...

I'm all for retirement savings and life insurance policies and buying shoes that our kids can grow into and planting trees with the hope that they will grow larger in time. There are times, of course, when planning for the future is good and necessary and right.

But I've had ...