When a love for planning collides head on with life in the military and five (mostly) unexpected kids, I need to learn how to be intentional with grace.

When we feel like we have nothing to offer (even ourselves) and we’re not sure how to steward the tiny bit of energy we do have, here’s a way forward.

When a single, soggy pinto bean teaches me important lessons about vulnerability and growth.

When we choose not to pursue happiness but to count it in a courageous shift of perspective.

When you find yourself wanting to walk away and pretend that kid isn’t yours…and then wonder if God occasionally feels that way about you.

When we need to see those around us with generous compassion—and brotherly love doesn’t quite cut it—it helps to have a game of pretend in our back pocket.

There is water in the desert—and that is a miracle.

How can I hold out hope when there seems to be no healing? How is there hope when what I see is broken past fixability? How can I offer hope to someone going through the unimaginable?

When the desire to be entertained by newness collides with a need for consistency and a safety net.

When Aesop’s fables meet a pair of driven twins to show us that sometimes we need help…and it can come in small ways from unexpected places.

Some days you have two full meals to choose from for dinner. Others, you have a rejected post submission. Both times, it turns out, the timing was practically perfect in every way.

It felt like all the things I’d been trying to do, from the insignificant to the important, were just a sweeping waste of time.

So I sat with this verse: “Your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

The idea that what we think we know about something can get in the way of actually seeing (or hearing) well even applies to how we see ourselves.

It is very hard to look at something... What we think we know about that object gets in the way.