I laid out four spoons on the counter, pulled four small cartons from the freezer. “You have to close your eyes.”
In thanks for my efforts on a project, my client for freelancing had sent four pints of gourmet ice cream of my choosing (Cold Brew and Coconut Cream! Wildberry and Lavender!). My kids wouldn’t be enjoying the entire pint, believe you me.
Since dating over two decades ago, my husband and I have never not been in ministry. It’s assumed various avatars and levels of formality. And most of it? I love. I love my ministry marriage.
But I grinned without malice as my introverted husband headed to his elder meeting. “Make sure they know how valuable your words are, because you won’t have any left when you get home.”
A missionary friend told me once of a person she’d spoken with who, as a child in Africa, was slapped every time she asked a question.
I was moved by the person’s insight: “You don’t just stop asking questions,” they’d mused to my friend.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Confession: In the past, I have personally known Lent is almost here when fast-food signs start advertising fish sandwiches. So maybe your kids ask, “Hey, what’s Lent?” around Ash Wednesday (PSA: today is the start of Lent!). But if it isn’t something your family typically observes, you might be scrambling for answers that don’t include “Filet-O-Fish.”
So allow me a brief rundown of lent for kids, in language they (/we) can understand—and some tips to help it sink in.
First, catch this article I’ve written for FamilyLife.com: “What is Lent?” Lent for Kids, Made Easy.
If you, too, have occasionally allowed the Arby’s sign to remind you of the Church calendar–or have just been burned by feeling Lent has become a tradition without much meaning–this is a basic primer with ideas to make Lent fun for kids. It might kindle a little excitement of your own to observe Lent for kids. And Lent for yourself.
Then, grab this super-fun Lent paper chain I created with them, “Countdown to the Cross.” Every day has yep-you-can-do-this-and-still-survive activities to help you count down to Easter together. And that’s even if your kids are still at the “I remind them to wash their hands after the bathroom” phase, or “I’m just trying to get my kids to remember where they put their shoes.”
(Bonus: this is SUPER CUTE, and the graphics build up to Easter as you get closer!)
Lent’s an ideal time to introduce spiritual disciplines—prayer, fasting, remembering, simplicity, celebrating—into your family’s lifestyle and rhythms. I
t’s also a great opening to communicate that Easter’s so much more than a pastel-doused sugar-fest. Lent’s a time to get our hearts ready to truly appreciate Jesus’ death for us and celebrate a history-altering Resurrection.
It says, Hey, kids. This.
And it really can be fun–with engaging, doable activities that allow you to build anticipation and introduce spiritual disciplines for a lifetime. Lent can be great “training wheels” for future practices that fuel and add robust fullness to our relationship with God.
You game?
Click here for the article and paperchain download.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So speaking of awkward conversations: Asking for ideas to honor your husband might float over some girlfriends like a lead balloon.
Given male-female relations in the headlines, looking to honor your husband might arch some eyebrows. It’s far more acceptable for men to be pro-women—or women to be pro-women!—than sticking in his corner.
Won’t that promote toxic masculinity or something? Shouldn’t we be knocking men down a peg?
But honor is a marital jetpack for both spouses.
In Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What We Want Made Women Miserable, columnist and political analyst Andrea Tantaros argues,
There is a common thread between the genders: it’s kindness, respect, and mutual admiration.
.…Women are implicitly being told not to be kind, thoughtful, and nice to the men they love because doing so is supposedly just one step away from being barefoot and pregnant and watching Leave It to Beaver.
.…Acts of service has been a love language—a way to express affection—since time immemorial.
….If everybody is self-involved in their own happiness, then everyone is going to be unhappy because no one is going to be doing nice things for anyone.
In my own marriage, honor creates a biosphere where mutual care and consideration thrive. My husband just walked downstairs and thanked me for making the bed this morning; often he does it, or we do it together.
But before the verse commanding us to “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10), there’s a short, killer phrase: “Let love be genuine” (verse 9).
So honor isn’t a way to manipulate him. Or pacify him. Or subtly slot myself above him in spiritual superiority.
It’s a way to put the Gospel on repeat between us: that Jesus honored us to the point of washing his Bride’s feet and giving his life for her when she didn’t deserve it.
(I’m not advocating the kind of blind submission that leads to an abusive relationship. Wondering if that’s you? See Are You In an Abusive Relationship?)
Hop over to FamilyLife.com to check out In His Corner: 32 Ways to Honor Your Husband where I’m offering some practical, doable, suggestions. (You might also want to check out this podcast episode, What if My Husband Doesn’t Deserve Respect?)
The Stressed Version of Your Marriage
Reading Time: 6 minutes
It’s a conversation I’ve had with at least three parents in the last week who shared something in common with a version of myself back in the day: We didn’t really see ourselves as homeschool parents.
(FYI, I homeschooled until my family returned from living in Africa. All four transitioned well–though not seamlessly–to public school.)
Ten years ago, I was a reluctant homeschooler.
I have friends and family members as public school administrators and teachers who are stellar at what they do–and there’s a reason they’re well-trained in their jobs. But 2020 is a unique season where parents choosing remote learning may struggle to find kids engaged (especially pre-readers).
What should you consider?
Boys receive up to 70% of the Ds and Fs given all students, they create 90% classroom discipline problems, most high school dropouts are boys, millions of American boys are on Ritalin and other mind-bending control drugs, only 41% of college students are boys, and three out of four learning disabled students are boys.
I began to beef up on hands-on, boy-friendly learning. (Some schools do this very well!)
(On the one day per week my son came home from first-grade co-op, he needed a wide berth. Turns out it took a lot of energy to sit in a desk and try to behave all day. He was a crank.)
(NOTE: Don’t shy away from homeschooling if you feel you lack creativity. Every homeschool parent’s DNA is different, and many curricula can help supplement areas of weakness. Look for programs that compensate, but with which you remain comfortable.)
At the time, I did wonder if I should be doing other things with my time. Now that three of my kids are teenagers, I don’t regret those years for a minute.
h! My son’s learning disorder also pressed me to become a more creative, loving teacher. These methods helped me teach other early-childhood teachers and later refugees in Uganda.
Some programs can still engage a student with less involvement from a parent. Do your homework, m’kay?
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
This is a time to pray for God’s generous wisdom (James 1:5-6), eschew fear (2 Timothy 1:7), and look at yourself and your kids with sober judgment (Romans 12:3).
Homeschooling has changed a lot since I started a decade ago! But I love what I’m seeing with programs like Timberdoodle and Reading Eggs. (Brand-new and worried about knowing what to do each day or your kids keeping up? Research all-in-one curricula.)
My kids used online Teaching Textbooks for math, and I personally loved Classical Academic Press’ Writing and Rhetoric, as well as Peace Hill Press’ Story of the World (my kids listened to this history-as-a-children’s-book while playing Legos).
Consider your child as a whole, making sure they’ll have social outlets–perhaps even using your school’s homeschooling program.
Because my kids are self-driven (excelling in the Educational Spring Weirdness of 2020), are reluctant to school in masks, and are in middle/high school, we’re giving some thought to government-funded, entirely online programs (like Edgenuity or K12–since we’re only required to commit for a school quarter here. (You can do anything for nine weeks, right?)
Make sure you research your state’s guidelines for registering your kids as homeschoolers, and keep up with your state’s grade-level standards and testing procedures.
Homeschooling isn’t for every child or every parent! Pray about your reluctance–discerning what’s legit, and what God might have you do for now in courage and wisdom.
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Rachel Hollis carries that mysterious polarizing power. People tend to either love her or…not love her.
Let’s pretend you don’t know who she is, m’kay? Hollis’ resume boasts what most of ours never will. She’s a #1 New York Times Bestselling author whose nonfiction (Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing) has sold over 3 million copies. Once crowned among Inc. magazine’s “Top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30,” she owns The Hollis Group, which encourages people toward “positive and lasting change.”
More relevantly (as of late), Rachel Hollis and husband Dave hosted their own Rise Together marriage podcast, frequently administered marriage advice via YouTube and social media, and held a marriage weekend for couples in their hometown of Austin in 2018 for a top-shelf price tag.
Last week in separate Instagram posts, the couple announced the end of their 16-year marriage (creating enough of a ripple to be covered by NBC).
Read: We’re taking in the marital demise of one of the most globally influential self-help couples.
And this is why I bring this to the table, and stewed over to even write on this. Personally, I prefer to avoid even supermarket tabloid headlines (why hello, invasive gossip that’s none of my beeswax).
Because if you’re reading this, perhaps Rachel Hollis has affected you.
“Yes, I do feel duped–in that if I have had all this transparency, how come along the way you haven’t said, ‘This has been really hard’?” asks a commentator in The Growth Marriage YouTube channel. Their episode explains followers are asking, in essence,
Well, if [the Hollises] couldn’t do it, can I do it?
If these amazing people…who are successful and have the money, and they have access to…the best therapists and the best coaches…and they can’t make it, what is the likelihood I can make it?
Tens of thousands of social media reactions to Rachel Hollis’ divorce range from the broken, to the enraged, to the curious, to the downright hopeless.
Wherever you fall in that spectrum–how do we respond?
Rachel Hollis may carry that persona of that girl or celebrity people love to watch fall–perhaps in light of her sheer, enviable (or questionable) confidence.
The fragility of ego in all of us, tended to like a newly-hatched chick, knows too well a sense of worth grounded in something other than what God says we are. Than what Christ has done for us. It’s that same impulse that births lovely statements like “told you so” or “knew it all along.” The hater within rises for the sake of ego-inflation.
Alternatively, maybe you’re feeling sold a bill of goods, footing the bill for someone’s ambition or personal empire.
This remains a time to hold fiercely to that gilded principle of loving one’s neighbor. It’s loving the person in proximity, even through the click of a mouse–the way you’d want to be loved.
How you’d want your kids to be loved if your divorce and personal failure were splashed to two million.
Or you’d hope someone would tweet if they knew your heart was flattened.
How you’d want people to respond to your mistakes, flea-sized or more like the pachyderm in the room.
First Peter 3:9 speaks of returning a blessing for an insult–a reiteration of the life of Jesus. Maybe you feel like this is a special case, considering the lofty, self-made position from which Rachel Hollis broadcast marriage advice.
But let’s let the one of us without weakness, sin, or nary a dysfunctional relationship or false statement lob the first stone.
In the Instagram post announcing the end of her marriage, Hollis requests a reprieve from the “open book” of her social media life. She writes, “We hope that you can allow us a human moment.”
She is saving her strength, boldness, and optimism, she explains, for their four children. (Let’s hurt for them together, shall we?)
Much of reader backlash is that realization of false sense of vulnerability–a “curated imperfection”, one blogger called it long before this moment.
In Dave Hollis’ recently published book, Get Out of Your Own Way: A Skeptic’s Guide to Growth and Fulfillment, he observes about those who’ve advised his marriage in the past,
If those voices come from people who are killing it in their own relationship, their thoughts are welcome….If the feedback you’re getting is coming from someone who can’t keep a steady relationship, you best filter out their feedback as it does not come from a credible source.
Hmm.
Yes, many followers feel the gravity of that sense of defrauding, even betrayal.
It’s a cautionary tale to any of us vaulting forward on advice like the Hollises’, constructing a personal platform nail by nail–whether cinching that next promotion, as a mom-blogger, or looking toward church leadership.
Paul defines his ministry this way: “We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one” (2 Corinthians 7:2).
And David says of God, “you delight in truth in the inward being” (Psalm 51:6). This is a decidedly different model than “fake it till you make it.”
Further, God sets the bar high in our work for others: “Let love be genuine” (Romans 12:9). Paul elaborates in Philippians, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (2:3-4).
No, we might not be portrayed as marriage gurus. But which of us can say we’re 100% who we purport to be? That, like God, there is total unity, no divided desires or interest, throughout us?
In truth, the line between truth and falsehood falls like a ribbon down the middle of each human heart. May this tragedy shove each of us closer to an authenticity denuded of social-media sparkle and personal ambition. May we ask instead, “What does it look like to love and serve those in front of me? What am I taking from them for my own gain?”
Based on the Hollises’ own messages, self-reliance, ambition, and wealth stand as key values for both of them. It stands to reason this might also articulate their marriage partnership and culture.
“You are the hero of your own story….You should be the very first of your priorities,” reads the first chapter of Girl, Wash Your Face.
To put it baldly, these run contrary to a marriage defined by the culture of the Kingdom of God.
Do they sprout in every marriage to some extent? Ain’t no doubt.
Now, there is One who knows the story behind the Hollis calamity. Hint: It’s none of us.
But wherever we find these values in our relationships, they run contrary to marriage’s structure as per its Designer. And to the extent they exist in your marriage, their force corrupts.
Diametrically opposed is the biblical definition: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives” (1 John 3:16).
It’s the kind of love manifested by the kind of Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6).
By no means does this mean a marriage unfueled by desire, by a passion to create change and achieve. Rather, God washes our ambition for purposes and Kingdom ever-larger than Self. It’s a culture of each for the other, and Christ as hero.
A Christian man once rather boldly commented to me that Rachel Hollis exists because godly Christian husbands who advocate for their wives don’t.
Like a beast with four stomachs, I’ve chewed on this. I’ve written about the allure of Rachel Hollis, the God-hewn need in Christian women for more purpose than can be found in a crockpot and a Swiffer under each arm, or even in our kids.
So many women long to hear someone say, Crush it. Kill your lies and get out there.
And yes. Yes. God made you for more: As a person. As a team.
And to be clear, contrary to the Instagram announcement of Dave Hollis, it’s not a setup where marriage “run[s] its course”. Because love doesn’t really do that, with a few key exceptions (check out Mark 10:7-9, and maybe this one about when the Bible allows for divorce).
Self will assassinate your relationship, whether anyone recognizes your name or not.
The kind of life and marriage worth living, the kind of purpose worth real sacrifice, are so much more vast than a Louis Vuitton bag and a posse of people who think you’re all that and a bag of Doritos.
Respond to Rachel Hollis’ divorce with compassion, increased personal authenticity, and ruthlessness not in your careerism, but in extracting the selfish ambition from your relationship, for a Kingdom greater than your own. That’s a hope-filled relationship.
God made you, and your marriage, for more.
Girl, You’re Strong: The Allure of Rachel Hollis
Reading Time: < 1 minute
So yeah. You were wanting more time together! And then…you really. Got a lot. Of time. Together. Time for a date in, anyone?
My #homebound husband and I are finding it helpful to schedule a few dates in here and there, so we’re doing more than just, y’know, breaking up sibling squabbles, loading the dishwasher, and meeting deadlines.
There can be some significant stress during a pandemic (who knew?). So I’m hoping to make it easy today to pencil in a date-in–maybe even tonight.
I’ve grabbed six clean-ish, highly-rated movies–most, if not all, currently available on Amazon Prime or Netflix. And I’ve paired them with something fun from your local takeout as we help local businesses get back on their feet (the exception being a picnic lunch. But hey, grab tacos and put ’em in a basket. Date in: Check).
Most of these movies also have a little side of romance, yet not enough that the XY-chromosome member of your relationship isn’t like, Wow, I think we already saw a Hallmark movie about the Christmas tree farm.
Feel free to share and encourage your friends’ marriages. We’ll get through this.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Here in the odd twilight of Quarantine Land, it can be easy for thoughts and emotions to muddle. If you’re not naturally introspective–or even if you are–sometimes reactions can catch you out of the blue.
Why’d I just snap at her?
Why am I so fatigued? I’m pretty much doing the same stuff as usual.
Gosh, why do I feel tears?
#COVIDcrazy is real. So how can you make the most of quarantine, huddling into a bit of soul-rest–and the rested version of yourself–rather than the stressed version?
(BTW–loved me a Zoom meeting with a group of ladies this week as I talked about your soul on rest.)
So as I love to do, I’ve got a mashup for you of quarantine questions to journal or pray over. (No need to get overwhelmed. Choose a couple that seem to ping on something when you read them.)
Reading Time: 5 minutes
My family, end of 2019.
So usually I’m squirreling away posts with ideas in case you’re stomping through some of the same territory I am: Kids failing a band audition (and helping them deal with failure). Teens whose choices scare the crap out of you. Wondering if you’re burning out.
But every now and then, maybe some of you want an update on my life this side of the screen. (Maybe you don’t.)
So here’s a list of 10 things swirling around in my life right now.
Speaking of things that scare the crap out of a girl. (Pardon the use of “crap” twice in one post.)
For Christmas, my husband sent me on another personal retreat, because hey, remember my last one? I actually had the diagnosed-with-a-letter flu.
So on Retreat Take #2, I finished my first draft of my book on spiritual life skills for messy families. This is a serious win. And on my next-level personal edit, I’ve got two chapters to go.
I can’t tell if my heart races because I’m thrilled or petrified. Mostly both.
Would you pray for me?
My husband just finished a handful of books like John Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World.
I also finished Shauna Niequist’s Present over Perfect: Leaving behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living, during which I bought it for, like, three friends.
There’s a theme of essentialism working its way through the two us: saying the right no’s with our stuff and our schedules and our hurry and our grocery list.
We gave away maybe 11 bags of stuff after the new year, and are prying holes in our schedule big enough to pray in, breathe in.
I pretty much love it. And there’s a lot more to go.
As I thought through my evaluation of 2019 (try it!), some of the adjectives I wrote down included surprising. Packed. Hopeful.
And thumb through my red journal and you’ll find ways I want to respond to God in 2020:
Shoot. Now I probably have to really do these.
Part of this means I’m going to try to actually listen to my body and what’s going on in my mind/heart a little more. I call it “soul care”. Maybe it will look like this for me:
Text between my son and me.
Part of me loves it: Conversations about stuff that matters. Each of them ferretting out what makes them tick. Laughing at jokes they finally get and make. (My kids are funny.)
And part of me just gets a little tired and scared. Raising kids is hard, people.
(Man, do I have a potty mouth today.) A close friend was recently diagnosed with Stage 4. You don’t really know someone, probably, till you hear them vomit. But cancer, particularly when the bearer has kids, is just hard all over.
This is part of my life right now, as much as I would like to cross you out, #5.
This is one of the words God is forming in my husband and I. I wrote last year about being undistractedly all there with other people, starting with being present with God.
It didn’t make last year’s Top Ten. That’s cool with me. But it was one of those posts where I felt like, This. This is what God’s doing in me.
Thankfully, there was a moment last year when I was literally kayaking in the Red Sea, and tears started rolling down my face into the salt water. My arms felt powerful, but I realized at last I felt a healthy source of agency, too.
I’d just received the contract from Zondervan. I was doing what felt like valuable work with our organization, Engineering Ministries International, (EMI) that I believed in. I’d soon be speaking at a women’s retreat. I felt hopeful for the first time in a long time after returning from Africa.
And a lot of that was because I felt purposeful. After a long night, I seemed to be seeing a radiating tip of sunlight.
He hit a milestone birthday this year (the big 2-0! Not really). And man, does it look good on him.
Physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally–he’s established a lot of (formerly, occasionally) elusive self-discipline. He listens to people and sits with them. He plays Jokers and Marbles with the kids and goes out to coffee with the guys. I hardly know what to say.
I thought my respect for him was high before. But he’s knocking it out of the park.
It’s a gift to watch someone you love flourish. That’s all.
Grocery pickup, where have you been all my life?
Henna. While on my trip in Egypt, a street vendor used it on my forearm, and I loved it. I purchased supplies online mess around with it on girls willing to give it a try.
I got a robot vacuum on Black Friday; it was the same cost as the vacuum I needed. His name is Baby Shark. Vacuum tracks by 8:30 AM make me feel like I’m starting with a victory, even when it sucks up someone’s earbuds.
I have discovered I really like my house to smell good. I’ve made an essential oils blend of Lavender, Roman Chamomile, Clary Sage, Ylang-Ylang, and Geranium. (Only the cheap oils, because I am by definition sort of a cheapskate.) I drip them into my cheap-o diffuser.
I stopped drinking milk at night in my decaf, and stopped snoring. Go figure.
I got a pair of used cowboy boots on Poshmark. They make me feel sassy when I wear them with a skirt and shaved legs.
Since June, I’ve been heading up a project for FamilyLife: a 365-day emailed devotion series for couples. It’s witty and fresh, and I have a great team of writers. Sometimes I feel like I’m writing with my hair on fire–but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it.
If you want, check this one out–“He had a Skinny Mom”, by my friend Ashley. There’s a tiny link where you can subscribe in the lower right corner of the clicked link.
There you go. We just sort of had a cup of coffee.
Thanks, readers. For just being there.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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