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Don’t Stop Discovering Your Spouse

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Chad and I talk a lot. After twenty-four years of being friends, and twenty of those years living under the same roof,  you would think that we know just about everything about each other. You might assume that we’ve heard every story and can easily predict each other’s reactions to different situations. But, that’s not true. We are still discovering things about each other. He still surprises me regularly with an opinion or idea. I still have plenty of childhood stories in my memory that he has never heard. One of the most fun things about talking to your husband or wife is that there is always the chance that you will go a little bit deeper in understanding and knowing each other. There are all kinds of fascinating things going on in your spouse’s mind that you will never uncover unless you communicate.

Some couples have a hard time talking to each other. It’s understandable. It can be awkward and even disappointing or upsetting at times to try to talk with your spouse. Yet, sticking with small talk or, worse, silence, can be extremely damaging to your relationship. Even introverts need and crave human connection, and there is no one you should be seeking to know more than you seek to know your husband or wife.

God has given us marriage as a gift. What are we doing with it? Are we just getting through the days, working side by side but not connecting with each other in intimate ways? Are we neglecting each other in favor of other pursuits, even good things? One cure for a lack of connection is real communication. But, where do we start?

The other day Chad and I were at lunch and he mentioned that it would be fun to have some questions to ask each other. We searched around on the internet there in our booth and found a few websites that had conversation starters. We chose a few questions we found interesting, and it was really fun to see what kind of answers we could come up with. Oddly enough, a few days later I found an email in my inbox from Katie at Personal Creations, and she had created free printable questions for couples that she wanted to share with my readers! Is the internet spying on me? (Probably.)

Regardless, I really like these questions. Katie has even divided them into categories so that you can narrow down the topics that you might want to talk about at any given time. I think this is the first time I’ve ever gotten to offer free printables on my blog, and I’m pumped. Katie even includes some blank cards. I think I will use those to write some questions about spiritual things. You can print these cute cards out or just download them to your phone and pull them up during dinner one night. There are all kinds of ways you can use these questions to discover new things about your spouse and liven up the conversation when you’re driving or just hanging out together.

Just click the button above to download and/or print your questions. Huge thanks to Katie and Personal Creations for reaching out to me with this fun freebie. I would love to hear how you plan to use these questions to keep discovering your spouse. Have fun!

My Husband, My Friend, My Brother

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Today is Chad’s 44th birthday. Sometimes it takes my breath away, how quickly that our life is flying past. I remember exactly how I felt about life back in 1995 when I first laid eyes on him. He was young and unsure and I was naive and cautious. We struck up an unlikely friendship that puzzled lots of people, and here we are, a couple of decades later, still friends.

There are times when I get sad, thinking about the fact that we only have one lifetime to live as husband and wife. Our life isn’t perfect, because we aren’t perfect. There is plenty of un-fun stuff to deal with when you’re all grown up, but we are happy, truly happy, to be side by side through the good and the bad of the human existence.

After twenty years I’m beginning to learn that one key to Christian marriage is realizing that your husband, your closest friend, is also your brother in Christ. He is yours to uphold and safeguard. To marvel at as He grows in faith. To encourage, to bring honor to, to love. And at the end of this marriage, when one us of slips from this life to the next, we can take comfort in knowing that he is my brother and I am his sister, both heirs of the King who brought us together in the first place. We will have eternity.

I once heard John Piper say that whatever the marriage relationship is on earth, it will be something infinitely better in Heaven. Chad may one day cease to be my husband, but he will never cease to be my brother. It’s one of the great gifts of Christian marriage–knowing that we will forever worship our Savior, side by side. We will see each other as we were always meant to be. And we will know that, through this too-short life, we helped each other prepare for the day we would stand before the Lord.

What an undeserved blessing. Happy birthday to my husband, my friend, my brother.

Your Kids Do Think About You

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This morning I opened the door to my shower and turned the hot water all the way up. I stood there in my fuzzy robe, bleary-eyed and weary before the day had even really started and sighed deeply, wishing that I could go back to bed for a couple of hours. Then something undeniably cheery caught my eye from the corner of the steamy shower. It was three tiny bright yellow rubber ducks. Sawyer came across these ducks at some point in the past month or so, and since then every night when he takes a shower, he places them in some funny spot for me to find the next morning. Today they were perched atop three different bottles of soap and shampoo, facing each other as if they were conducting a board meeting. When I saw them I had to giggle a little bit. And wasn’t that Sawyer’s goal? To amuse me in some way? To brighten my morning with a cheerful little surprise?

Kids get the bad reputation of being completely self-focused. We tend to think of them as little creatures who think only of themselves and how they are affected by things. And there is no doubt that children do have the luxury of being a little bit self-centered at times. But as parents we should never make the mistake of believing that our kids don’t think about us. Actually, our children are constantly thinking about us, about how we react to things. About how we feel and what will make us happy or sad. Our kids are probably more in tune with our moods and wants and needs more than most people in our lives. And, as Sawyer’s ducks testify in their board meeting, our kids are often seeking ways to get our attention, meet our approval, or get a reaction from us.

As Christian parents, we should be especially aware of this way that our kids are tuned in to our actions and feelings. We can’t fool ourselves into thinking that our kids aren’t affected when we let our anger rule us. Or when we say something hurtful that can’t be unsaid. We can’t lull ourselves into believing that our kids don’t notice what we watch and listen to, what we say to our spouse or our friend, what we are posting on social media or how we react to those who are different from us. In many ways, my children are experts in who I am as a person. They know my favorite candy, which songs I’m most likely to belt out in the car, which colors I try to avoid because of my red hair. What would ever make me think that anything that I do escapes their notice? The truth is that every move I make informs them about who I am and what a Christian should be like, and they are watching me, always, to see what I will show them about following Christ.

It’s a terribly convicting thought because I know I am such a flawed example to them. Yet, I am an example nonetheless, and at this stage in their lives I am probably their most important example, apart from their dad. Sawyer’s ducks were a reminder to me: he is thinking about me. He cares how I interact with him and how I respond to him, both in fun and serious situations. He is watching me, considering me, wondering about me, and learning from me. Instead of assuming that our children are in their own world, wrapped up in kid things, we should stop and think about the many ways that they are showing us how perceptive they are of our attitudes and actions, and how often they are reaching out in their own ways for connection with us.

In all of this my prayer is that my own selfishness will be replaced by godliness. That when my kids watch me live this life, when they think about me and try to gauge my reactions, when they wonder how I feel or what I am thinking, that they will settle into a peaceful confidence. Their mother will not be perfect. But I pray they will see me seeking Christ and leaning on Him in the best times and the worst times.

With delight, Sawyer asked me if I liked the ducks. He smiled at me, and I wondered how much longer I will have the honor of being regularly on his mind. I reached out for a hug, and we grinned together about the three little ducks, discussing where they might turn up next. Just one flawed mother and her sweet son, learning each other and relying on the love of Christ when our own love proves imperfect. Tomorrow morning when I shuffle into my bathroom with a yawn, I expect I will again be surprised by three little yellow ducks. Maybe they will be standing on their heads. Maybe they will be marching up stairs made of shampoo bottles. I will smile in spite of the early hour because those little ducks will remind me once again that I sometimes occupy the thoughts of three children who have been entrusted to my care and discipleship. God’s mercies are new every morning, and so is the opportunity to show my kids what an authentic Christian life really looks like. They don’t need perfection. But they do need a Savior. And I am the mother who can point them to Him. What an honor. What a Savior.

Don’t Look Away

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I have been a part of my husband’s family for twenty years. I remember one night years ago before we all had kids, when Chad’s siblings and his parents and I were sitting around telling stories. Somehow a hilarious tale came up about some high school rebellion or other that had never been found out. As the story grew and she began to hear things she didn’t like, my sweet mother-in-law put her hands over her face and said with a laugh, “I don’t want to know about it!” She is a brilliant woman with multiple degrees, but when it came to this story, she enjoyed her blissful ignorance. She didn’t want to hear any more. She was happy to bury her head in the sand and go on believing that her boys were just as responsible and principled in high school as they are now.

It really doesn’t matter if Chad’s mom ever listens to that story or gets wise about some of the dumb stuff her kids did in high school. She isn’t raising them anymore. They turned out pretty great, and she can freely avoid the realities of those silly things that are now long past.

But those of us who are still in the trenches don’t get out so easy. We don’t get a bury-your-head-in-the-sand pass. We need to look up, look around, listen, and understand what is happening in the world around us.

A video is making its way around the internet that is part of a series called “Kids Meet…” This particular episode is titled “Kids Meet Someone Who’s Had an Abortion.” In the video, Amelia Bonow, the founder of #ShoutYourAbortion, sits down with kids to talk to them about how normal abortion is. She says it’s like “a crappy dentist appointment” where the doctor uses a straw to suck “the pregnancy” out. She also tells them that she feels that life begins at birth. For those who are pro-life, the video is disturbing. It revolves entirely around her feelings and sends the message to the kids who are speaking with her (and those who are watching on YouTube for Kids) that you are a mean person if you question someone’s feelings about a matter, even something as controversial and important as abortion.  She teaches the kids that the term pro-life is a misnomer and when one little boy says that he doesn’t believe that abortion should be a solution to what he calls “recklessness,” she tells him that even though her partner didn’t use a condom that she doesn’t qualify that as reckless, just a mistake.

As parents, it’s hard to face the reality that these are the kinds of “truths” that filmmakers and book writers, YouTubers and celebrities, teachers and politicians are diligently trying to teach our children. But the Bible is just another book on a shelf for most of the world. We MUST realize that the worldview that most influencers are promoting is directly opposed to what the Bible teaches. There was a time when what the culture was promoting pretty well lined up with the Bible. Parents in those days had the luxury of trusting the world at large to help them raise their children. We will not be able to coast through parenting that way. We will have to actively and consistently teach our kids how to process this world through a biblical lens, and the only way we can do that is if we look at and listen to exactly what our kids are being taught.

Over and over again as I shared this video with friends, they responded by saying they couldn’t watch the whole thing because they were too disgusted and disturbed. But, I would urge all of us: don’t look away. Watch and listen and show your kids and talk about it with them. Know what they are seeing on YouTube and Netflix. Know which websites they are frequenting. Follow Teen Vogue and see all of the ways that they are encouraging your kids to sin. Listen to the rhetoric that comes out of Hollywood and Washington. We can’t combat the wrong thinking that is being poured into our kids’ brains if we refuse to listen to it.

A few days ago, Amelia Bonow tweeted: “The ‘Kids Meet Someone Who Had An Abortion’ video now has over a million views. Huge thanks to the anti-choice mob for sharing widely & exposing tens of thousands of conservative women who’ve had abortions to the fresh, seductive idea that they don’t have to hate themselves.”

I like to think that the video has been shared so often because we, as parents, are waking up to the notion that our kids are being actively targeted and indoctrinated into a feelings-based worldview that completely discounts and directly opposes God’s way. But, it’s not enough to look and listen. Then we have to talk to our kids, often and with depth, and most importantly of all, we have to live out our faith in a way that shows them that God is real and that Jesus is so much better than anything the world has to offer.  Remember, the way is narrow and few find it. The majority of the voices out there are more in line with #ShoutYourAbortion than God’s word. Let’s raise our kids according to His word, eyes open, hearts tuned to His goodness, ears listening for the whispers of those who want to lead our children down the wide, easy path. Raising disciples in 2019 won’t be easy, but what an opportunity to bring glory to the Lord.

My Most Shared Posts of 2018

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Thanks so much for following along this year on the blog! Things were a little different around here this year due to not one, but TWO month-long podcasting marathons, plus a pretty cool job writing Sunday school curriculum for Lifeway. Oh, and that whole pastor’s wife and mom of three gig. Thank you for reading and sharing! Here are my most shared posts of the year.

Your Body is a Temple, Not an Idol It seems that it took my until I hit 40 to finally begin to recognize how much time I spend thinking about the way that I look. Obsessing would be a more appropriate word. This post shares some thoughts about what this type of thinking is doing to our spiritual growth.

What Christine Blasey Ford is Teaching Christians about Worldview One of the biggest news stories of the year unveiled some disturbing trends about the way the world is trying to teach us to think. Here I attempt to explain how the Christian worldview is radically different.

A Plea to Parents This post explores one way that we, as parents, can assess our own spiritual condition.

Be a Mama Who Prays A metaphor to help us understand how crazy it is that we don’t spend more time in prayer for our children.

Your Husband’s Porn Problem is Not About You Bebunking a myth that too many women believe: that a husband’s porn problem is a reflection of how he feels about his wife.

The Long Drive Home Here I share a painful memory from high school and what it taught me about myself. I pray that I will never forget that long drive home or what a missed gospel opportunity feels like.

Don’t Miss the Intimate Moments in Your Marriage A few simple thoughts about how much intimacy most of us don’t even notice in our day to day lives.

Mothers, Teach Your Sons Encouragement for moms of boys: you, too, should be teaching your sons about sex, relationships, women, and how to be a man.

A Prayer for My Children, Growing Up in Troubled Times I’ve been thinking through the ways I want to pray for my children. I’m so grateful that He hears me. (No perfect prayers necessary.)

Love Must Be Tender …even in the tough times.

Count the Cost of Raising True Disciples (and Know That It’s Worth It)

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I want you to know something about training up children in the way they should go: it’s hard. It’s at the same time the greatest joy and a constant source of heartache. While you may see your child soaring spiritually, growing in the Lord every day, knowing Him more and loving Him more even while she becomes a woman in a culture that preaches every wrong thing at her all day long, you may also see that her circle of friends dwindles. That she searches and doesn’t find a like-minded soul to share her teenaged years with. You may look up and realize that your child is on the narrow path, and there isn’t a lot of foot traffic there, especially in junior high and high school. You may figure out that your child is interested in all of the things that the rest of her world is not. And, you will laugh at the brilliance and beauty of her spirit which is anchored to Christ. And you will wipe tears as you wonder where she will turn for friendship and companionship and close friends as her years go on.

In all of that, in all of the jumping for joy and the wringing of hands, we must remember that in the end it will all be worth it. In fact, it’s worth it now. It’s worth it to see your child discovering Christ, really seeing Him and learning to depend on Him.

The question is not whether our children can flourish on this path. It’s isn’t whether they can handle the possible rejections or the loneliness or the feelings that come with living as outsiders in a land that very much values insiders. They can. They can and will flourish. They can and will handle it. They can and will endure suffering, the kind that leaves them searching a crowd of high schoolers, looking for one sign of encouragement. For one hint of, “We’re waiting for you. Come and sit with us.” Our kids, with Jesus, can withstand this and so much more.

The real question is whether we as parents will have the strength and the courage to stick with this plan. To forget about popularity and temporary glories so we can point our kids to eternal things. The question is whether we will turn to our Savior, counting on Him to be enough for our children, to sustain them and us through tough teenage years and the trials of being different, the sometimes pain of choosing Christ above all. Will we falter when we see our kids suffering? Or will we remind them that in these hardships they are identifying with their Savior?

When we pray that our children will have tender hearts toward the things of God, when we pray that they will be radically devoted to Him, we must also be prepared for what that really means. And we must remind each other, over and over again: it’s worth it. He is worth it. We can rely on Him to see our children through as they blaze a path of faithfulness through a world that has been dulled by complacency and hopelessness. This is what we have been praying for. God give us the faith and the perseverance to see it through, even when our hearts break. Following Christ isn’t easy. But it’s worth it.

A Fun Book to Add to a Child’s Stocking (a Book Review)

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As a first grader, Emerald LOVES reading of all kinds. We’re in that phase of life where she reads every sign we pass on the road, every package at the store, and one of her favorite parts of the day is sitting down to read a book at bedtime.

The other night we sat down with The Silent Noisy Night, written by Jill Roman Lord (and illustrated by Kelly Breemer), and we both loved it. It’s a play on the idea of that silent night that we always sing about at Christmastime, only in this book, it’s a pretty loud evening. All of the animals in the stable, in the fields, and in the forests come out and baa and squeak and moo with joy at the birth of Jesus. The angels sing and the shepherds shout. Some of the townspeople even sing and dance with gladness when they hear what the shepherds have to say. In the end, the story moves to present day Christmas. The author talks about how it was impossible for all of creation to stay silent that first special night because they heard the greatest news that ever was: the Savior was born! And now, too, she says, we can celebrate His birth through our “actions, songs, and words.” She encourages children to spread the love of Jesus by sharing the joy, just like on that very first (maybe noisy) Christmas night.

The illustrations in this book are bright and engaging. The animals are cute and comical, singing and dancing on almost every page, and the children are adorable. The Silent Noisy Night would be a great, last-minute addition to your kids’ or grandkids’ stockings this year! Did you know that everyone is currently getting free two day shipping on Amazon? You don’t have to be a Prime member to take advantage. So, order today and get it here in plenty of time for Christmas. Click here to order!

Emerald and I give The Silent Noisy Night two thumbs up! It would be a sweet addition to your Christmas celebration this year.

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I was provided a copy of A Noisy Night in exchange for my honest review. This post may contain affiliate links.

The Complicated Calling of a Pastor

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Today Chad and I drove across the wide open spaces of our part of Texas, sometimes chatting amiably, sometimes watching the scenery go by in silence. He spent time listening to speculation about his beloved Dallas Cowboys on sports radio while I dozed in the passenger seat. And at one point we spent a few minutes thinking and talking about our life and the interesting turns it has taken through the years. We never knew that we would wind up here, twenty years into our marriage, happily answering God’s call in our little town. Yet, here we are. God has been so gracious to bring us here where life is simple. The commute to anywhere in our town is four minutes. Trips to our local grocery store are bound to take awhile because there will be friends inside to talk to. Our world doesn’t revolve around money or cars, fashion or fancy houses. Our life here is beautiful and small and unique.

There is a certain simplicity to it. Yet, through the years we have learned just how complicated a pastor’s calling really is.

As people, Chad and I are irrevocably intertwined with others. We are likely to hear deep, dark secrets which we hold close, not even allowed to share many things with each other. We are entrusted with some of people’s most delicate admissions and live through some of their darkest hours with them. Our life is simple in so many ways. Yet, our life is about people, and people are anything but simple. We are complicated creatures filled with all kinds of surprising and delightful and shocking and sad secrets. Every room is at the same time a crowded collection of interpersonal struggles and warm friendships, family strife and sin struggles and amazing examples of God’s grace and mercy.  As a pastor’s family, we get a front row seat to all of it.

I have seen Chad carry the heavy burden of failing marriages and sudden deaths, of children with no heat in the dead of winter. I have seen him try to be the ultimate problem solver while problem after problem is laid before him. I have heard his prayers for the many people on his heart and mind at midnight when he should be sleeping.

And while all of this is going on, still he wrestles with his own spiritual battles. Still he studies and tries to flee temptation and undertakes the difficult task of dealing with difficult people, precious people, kind people, and mean people, all while begging the Holy Spirit to keep him from sin. To give him the mind and eyes of Christ. Still he feels the weight of his next sermon, always bearing down no matter what else is happening in his life or the lives of those who need him at any given time.

These aren’t things that pastors can really talk about with the rest of us. They carry a unique load, and one that isn’t easily understood by those of us who don’t bear their responsibilities. It’s a complicated calling.

Chad and I thank God every day for this simple, complicated life. We thank Him for the complicated people who have been entrusted to our care, and we thank Him for the simple message of the gospel, which can cut through the most complicated of circumstances. One thing we have learned in these pastoring years is that every complicated situation really comes down to just one thing: we all need Jesus. Watching Him work in the middle of even the most difficult and crazy circumstances proves it to us over and over again–Jesus is the real problem solver. A simple truth for a complicated calling.

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