Faith

Thoughts about how Christianity affects our every day lives

Want Some Rules for Spending Money?I'm glad the dos and don'ts don't work after all
Want Some Rules for Spending Money?
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A few years back, I was talking with a Christian friend about what spiritual principles we should invoke when we think about spending money. "I just wish there was a formula," she said. "I wish I had some dos and don'ts every time I walked into Target."

Early on in my adult ...

Lenten Reflections: Confessing the Small ThingsWhy I'm sorry I bought that dress
Lenten Reflections: Confessing the Small Things
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I am packing to go on a short vacation with my husband. I have been thinking about this time away all winter—three nights for just the two of us in Florida when I join him on the end of a business trip. Three days of sunshine. Three days of walks on the beach and calling our children just to ...

Lenten Reflections: Repent and Get on with itWhat my children's cheating taught me about sin and the kingdom of God
Lenten Reflections: Repent and Get on with it
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A few weeks back, I was stuck inside with all three kids on yet another snow day. All of them wanted to be entertained. None of them wanted to play the same game. In an attempt to avoid a battle and to push off yet another hour of screen time, I agreed to play three games at once—memory match ...

What House of Cards, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men Get Right (and what they don't get)Our belovedness is more true than our sinfulness
What House of Cards, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men Get Right (and what they don't get)
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Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times describes Netflix's House of Cards "the most joyless show on television." My husband and I have settled right in. I'm intrigued by the storyline—a powerful Congressman (Kevin Spacey) who becomes Vice President by hook and by crook and ...

In Defense of LentFive reasons to fast and feast until Easter arrives
In Defense of Lent
Image: Pimlico Badger, flickr

I used to feel some measure of disdain towards people who observed Lent, the religious season that begins next Wednesday and continues for forty days until Easter. For those who gave up candy or cheese, I figured it was just a religious excuse for a diet. For those who began a particular devotional ...

Holy DespondencyWhat my season of loneliness taught me about my identity in Christ
Holy Despondency
Image: flickr

A year ago, about six months after our move to Connecticut, loneliness pressed down on my torso as if I had donned a vest padded with weights. It came as a result of a series of conversations in which every person I talked to referred to me as a wife or a mother. I am both a wife and a mother, but ...

What Are Your Anchors?It took a 5:45 workout to get me back into decent physical shape. And it made me think about what I need to hold me in a place of spiritual health too.

I started going to boot camp last April. I don't really know what got into me. Perhaps I was overwhelmed by the five or so pounds I had gained over the winter. Or inspired by the women I knew who went there and felt better and got stronger and enjoyed their time together. For whatever reason, ...

My New Year's Epiphany"What makes you anxious? Where is God in that anxiety? How could your anxiety be transformed into peace?"

Coming back into this week, making the transition from parties and lazy mornings and finishing up my book and letting the mail and email pile up, I panicked. Peter and I ended the vacation with two days away together, and on Saturday night I surveyed the state of my desk and thought about the logistics ...

Are You Ready for Christmas? (And Why It's Okay If You Aren't)"I'm not ready for Jesus to show up, and perhaps that's exactly as it should be."

Have you bought all the presents? Have you wrapped them all? How about the cookies? The movies? The cards?

Maybe you are like me and most of the physical preparation for Christmas are complete. And maybe you are like me and this season of Advent, meant to be a time of spiritual preparation, has instead ...

Snow Days and Preparing Him RoomIt's one of my favorite lines from a Christmas hymn, Joy to the World: Let every heart prepare him room… But my heart is crowded with the regular preparations for Christmas

It's one of my favorite lines from a Christmas hymn, Joy to the World: Let every heart prepare him room.

But my heart is crowded with the regular preparations for Christmas–writing a letter and sending out cards, decorating the tree and making cookies, buying presents, wrapping presents, buying more ...

Remembering Newtown and Singing Jingle BellsThe anniversary of the Newtown shooting will always coincide with Advent, with the mournful, expectant waiting for Jesus' arrival. As it should be--a recognition of this in-between space, in which the glimmer of hope breaks into the darkness, and yet the darkness still sometimes seems to be ever-present.

Nearly a year ago, I went out to lunch with a friend. When I returned I learned that a gunman had attacked a school down the road. We all know the horrific story now, and a year later, though the emotions aren't as raw, I'm also not sure that anything that went terribly awry last year has been mended ...

The Goodness of Glitz at Christmastime"Hey guys, what do you feel like when it is dark?" "I can't see," William said. "Frightened," said Penny...

We started our Advent calendars on Sunday. Penny read the opening poem from our devotion/sticker Advent book:

There is a star in Bethlehem, bright shining as the sun,Announcing that the Light of God shines here for everyone.Let's look upon the star this year, as God wants us to do,And welcome God's great ...
A One-Word PrayerWhat is one word that sums up your needs and hopes right now?

"What's one word or verse I can pray for you?"

Those were the words from a friend I received earlier this week.

One word, or one verse, that sums up my needs before God right now. In this season. This season in which God is beginning to feel quite near quite often, for the first time in a long time. This ...

What I've Learned About God from Singing to My ChildrenWhat have your children taught you about God?

My kids have taught me a lot about God. It mostly happens when the lights are out.

The bedtime routine is almost over. Penny has taken her sweet time putting on her pajamas. I say, "Penny, I am starting to feel angry but I don't want to yell at you." She turns slowly in my direction, then gives me a ...

Why Aren't Christians Flooding Yoga Retreat Centers?I was a little weirded out by the buddhist figurines and the chanting and the incense. But by the end, I was convinced that Christians should be flooding yoga retreat centers...

In early July, I went to Kripalu, a yoga center in the Berkshire mountains, for a two day retreat with an old friend. Not only did we practice yoga three times a day, we also ate copious amounts of healthy food, enjoyed the sight of the mountains and the lake, talked and talked and talked as only women ...

Don't You Care If We Drown?In the midst of a raging storm, "The disciples wanted Jesus to pitch in, to do his part in solving the crisis. But Jesus had other things in mind altogether." It's true in my life as well.

A few years ago, I came to a totally new understanding of a passage from the Bible in Mark 4 when Jesus falls asleep in a boat and his disciples wake him up when a storm comes. I wrote about it then, but it has been reposted on Not-Alone.org (a site I recommend for anyone who has children with special ...

Why I Don't Pray for the World AnymoreMy world of concern has grown smaller as my children have grown. And I think that might just be okay.

I used to pray for the world. I remember, especially with William, sitting late at night as he nursed, and scrolling through a mental map of conflicts around the globe. I spent the most time praying for a host of people I knew, mostly scattered up and down the east coast of the United States, with a ...

What Our Children Teach Me About Prayer"I still sometimes wish I had an orderly prayer life, but I'm also grateful for the disruptions my children have offered. Because it is in those disruptions that they continue to teach me how to pray."

Earlier this week, I shared the link to a new article I wrote for InTouch Magazine about Praying with Penny. But it's a story that never ends, because all of our kids are constantly teaching me more about how to pray.

Recently, there was the night when we were reading The Berenstein Bears and Too Much ...

Why We Go to ChurchI was irritated with my kids all through church and the entranced by them later that afternoon at the beach. So which one was the more spiritual experience?

It would be so much easier if we just stayed put on Sunday mornings.

Take yesterday as an example.

Even though our kids wake up a good four hours before the service starts, somehow we scramble to get everyone showered and dressed and out the door. There's a fight over who drives (not between Peter and ...

Losing the Habit of FaithI learned on Easter Sunday that my inconsistent practice of faith changes nothing about God's faithfulness to us.

It has been six weeks since we moved into our new house. So far, we've lost a tie rack, a Fisher Price barn, a navy blue quilted jacket, and our silver. (I can now amend this post to say I discovered the silver at the bottom of a large overlooked box in the basement, interspersed among some stray legos ...

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