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Tag: Ever Thine Home

Guest Post: For When You’re Tired of Driving All the Good Stuff

October 26, 2017 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

driving all the good stuff pushDo you ever get tired of being the driver in your home? Y’know–driving the homework. The dishes from their hands to the dishwasher. The manners and respect. The time with God. The self-control in conflicts. The propriety in dating.

I need to admit: I get tired of the lack of my kids’ ownership in the values my husband and I care about–whether it’s peace, or order, or worship, or personal responsibility. And as my kids get older, in some ways, my control diminishes.

Guest post: Where’s the Holy Spirit When My Marriage is Hard?

August 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: 3 minutes

It was late, and she was crying now. Her marriage had been hard–hard for a long time.

I think it was there that I really saw Him, though He’d been there the whole time. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is a little like an I Spy book to me. Knowing what He looks like, I’m learning to spot Him among the clutter of circumstances, ones He’s meticulously arranged.

I want to tell you what He looked like, there in that dimly-lit room, where she was just so tired of waiting for God to change things. Even there, in her road-weary face that longed for a break in being “tough” and “strong”–I saw Him making beautiful things out of dust, as the song goes. read more

Guest post: God of My Heartbreak: Teaching Teens to Pray

March 24, 2017 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Of the many nuggets I’ve gleaned from my father-in-law, perhaps one I am most grateful for is his response to my husband’s teen years.

A lot of people find merit in Mark Twain’s quip: When a boy turns 13, put him in a barrel and feed him through a knot hole. When he turns 16, plug up the hole.

But my father-in-law wasn’t one of them. Those tornadic years of my not-yet-husband’s were a signal to pull out the outdoor gear, summit as many of Colorado’s fourteeners as they could knock out, and tack on some decent kayaking, cycling, and snow caving along the way. My father-in-law saw the rippling strength of the teen years as a chance to explore manhood together. read more

Guest post: 30 Activities for Kids in March

March 7, 2017 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Has your family started the spring break countdown? We want to make our time with kids intentional. But where to start? Over on EverThineHome.com, I’ve got 30 ideas to try this month. Hop on over and check ’em out!

Happy almost-Spring! (And BTW–if you like this, you might love the Relationships page, full of tons of ideas.)

Guest post: 9 Ways to Pray for Your Marriage in Tough Times

February 9, 2017 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

It’s been one of the most pressing seasons for our marriage.

We’ve been navigating a crux of major life decisions—only one of which included the continent we’d be living on. And our marriage that has been characterized by fairly fluid teamwork can at times be pulled taut by our diverging passions, longings, and reasoning.

“Stressed” doesn’t begin to cover it. read more

Guest post: Breathing Lessons

January 28, 2017 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

For those of you who’ve been married: Do you remember what “just married” felt like? After the sound of the tin cans clanking behind the car faded, after you set your bags down in your together home after the honeymoon—what was it like?

Reality: No matter how much training you’ve had, one flesh takes a lotta work. My sin settled in our little 500-square-foot apartment right alongside our stacks of wedding gifts. And when my sin collided head-on with his? Well, let’s just say sometimes I wished our duplex walls were a little thicker.

Guest post: He loves me, He loves me not

January 12, 2017 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Do you remember the moment that first made you wonder if He truly loved you?

I don’t know if I remember the first one. But I remember the first big one, and I can trace the crooked, faltering lines of the rest of them through my past. (Fear has its way of searing itself upon the conscience.)

For me, unbelief usually blossoms as fear; as worry. My unbelief stems directly, stealthily, from its taproot in my heart. He loves me? He loves me not? read more

Guest post: What satisfies you?

August 19, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Moment of truth: When I was a young mom, a baby on my hip and three toddlers/preschoolers welded around my knees, rising early for a quiet time simply did not happen. Part of it was that Mommy-radar kids possess—the one that somehow senses She Has Awakened, and it is now time for the pitter-patter of little feet to commence. Part of it was sheer exhaustion, nursing through the night or pregnant for literally five years; a REM cycle is simply too key to being a happy mommy. So I would fold open my Bible at night, after the last drink of water/trip to the bathroom/I found an owie on my toe routine. And just before my eyelids fell in exhaustion.

But now that I have passed that precious and grueling season of survival, there is something magnetic about curling in the quiet with my God, as the gray light turns softly pink, and before my now-taller children shuffle out for breakfast. It has become my “me” time. It is my time to be embraced, much as I seek to envelop my kids in their bedheads and still-warm PJ’s as they emerge. The Psalmist writes it succinctly: atisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

And this prayer, whether my quiet time works out as planned or not—this begging of God to satisfy me—has become a vital element of my day.  I’m thinking about this on Barbara Rainey’s Ever Thine Home blog again today. Hop on over and check it out!

Guest post: What’s in a Name?

July 30, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

It was my freshman year of college. I stood nestled in our college choir with the second-altos, clad in a uniform dress that somehow carried the ability to transform my appearance into that of a black olive. The first few notes of the piano introduction were lilting over the auditorium, in our first number after the break: Jesu, Dulcis Memoria. Jesus, sweet memory.

But as the notes softly vibrated, a member of the crowd, we found out, had been seizing. What I did not anticipate was that, as the word Jesu slipped out of our mouths, the seizure would cease.

I’m sure that some could call it superstitious or unfounded to correlate the two. And I’m willing to admit there are other explanations. And yet—I’m fascinated by stories like this in Scripture: God’s power in Elijah’s bones; in Jesus’ coat; in Peter’s shadow. read more

Guest post: Crown Him with many crowns

July 23, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

My son—my oldest—turned twelve a few weeks back. Helping him with his piano lesson, I played a few notes of the “New World Symphony” for him. He didn’t remember a bit of it—though we played it night after night after night for him as an infant, willing that cranky boy to go to sleep in one different house after another during a crazy season of life. We visited 13 states in his first 13 months of life. I’m pretty confident he was grumpy in all 13.

But mothering him well looked so different than what it does now. Now we’re having conversations about puberty, about ethics; he just finished reading The Hobbit, and borrows my phone to play TobyMac while he washes dishes. Each stage—crabby or not—has enveloped me in a rich joy that could only be flattened if I attempted to describe it to you.

Baden age 12 5 Baden age 12 1 Baden age 12 2 Baden age 12 3 Baden age 12 4 read more

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