This week on a phone conversation with a friend, she asked what’s become our custom at the end of our calls: What’s one intimate prayer request I can pray for?
It was probably telling that I didn’t really know.
At dinner each night of November, see if your family can collectively think of 10 more things you’re thankful for. Keep a running list.
Display a vase filled with your list written on slips of paper. Alternatively, scrawl gratitude items on kraft paper doubling as a Thanksgiving tablecloth—complete with markers or crayons prompting guests to add their own.
So guess what I got in the mail this week?
It’s real, folks. After a long…long path here, Permanent Markers releases October 5. (Grab the first chapter free via the right-hand sidebar of my blog, if you’re game.)
Thanks to Steven Helmick, a principal of a school of over 1000 and an educator among the top eight Arkansas’ 2014 teachers of the year, for lending his expertise to this list.
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.
I’m just not all there with him.
So I’m pulling ideas together to help me/you hone in on being “all there” this Christmas, starting with our audience of One.To an already-packed schedule, Christmas can feel a bit like “more bricks, less straw.”
If your goal is being present in the ways that matter, cut out a few of the “have-to’s” that aren’t.
Anyone else–after Thanksgiving away from family–feeling a little sad?
My kids have cousins and grandparents they won’t have seen for a year. Though I obviously hate this pain on a number of levels–I love that my kids (including three teenagers!) were visibly bummed when Thanksgiving was canceled with their grandparents, and cousins half their age.
I still recall with vividness my son’s drawing, proclaiming my anger issues to the world.
It was in red marker (his favorite color). Chunky hands rested on wonderfully slim, stick-figure hips. “I made you look mad, but you’re not mad in this picture,” he explained.
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