We bought a home 4 years ago with a beautifully landscaped backyard... that would be perfect for a family with no kids. Several features were impractical for our crew, so we're in an extended DIY remodel. 

It's hard.

And not just the physical labor. What I didn't expect is the emotional work required....

I've been thinking a lot lately about the New Testament story of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. 

If you're not familiar with the story, I'll give you the quick version. After a big day of feeding 5,000 people with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish -- which took some serious miracle power, Jesu...

This weekend, our very curious and creative 6-year old got bored and figured out that she could break rocks open by throwing them really hard against a bigger one. She was so excited that she could "make crystals!"

Walking into church yesterday, she picked up a rock and turned it over in her hand. Ex...

I had a prospective client consultation yesterday, during which she shared that she actually found me through... wait for it... ChatGPT. (!!?) It blew my mind! 

I didn't have a ChatGPT marketing strategy; heck, I've barely had any kind of marketing strategy for my web design business, other than word...

Fog looks thick and mysterious when you first approach it. As you move forward a step at a time, your visibility is limited, but you can usually see at least a little way in front of you. And it turns out that's enough. A verse of a favorite hymn comes to mind when I think about this idea:

Lead, ...

It's really easy to make decisions based on our backstory (who we were in the past). We have clear, often recent, evidence of what worked--or didn't work--for us and what we were capable of. 

The problem with that, though, is there isn't room for much growth. Maybe we try to do a little better than w...

Hide and Seek is one of the favorite games at our house. The person who is "it" waits downstairs, counts to 30, and then yells at the top of their lungs, "READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!" They then hunt the corners and closets around the house, looking for the rest of the family (everyone dreads being "i...

It's really easy to hide from your dreams. I've been practicing it for years. It looks really noble, like sticking with what you know for the stability of it, and it works. You get better and better at what you know, and you see great results. But there comes a point when you reach the edge of the s...

"Can't" is a no-no word at our house. Not at the soap-in-your-mouth level, but it definitely gets called out. Why? Because I want our kids to grow up telling the truth. 

Can't is--in most cases--simply not accurate on its own, and can really keep us stuck.

It might feel like you can't in this moment, ...

When reality falls short of the ideal,

When our best-laid plans fall through, 

When sunny forecasts turn stormy;

When deep sleep is interrupted...

We can look at these as setbacks and be discouraged, or we can open ourselves to the idea that maybe there is even more available than we thought. Ma...

A fetus develops for about 37-40 weeks before anyone sees what she actually looks like (minus some rough scans, depending on where the mother lives and what her healthcare coverage is like). 

The mother knows her baby is there, without any doubt. The more time goes on, the more she feels that reality...

Peace and light are available always, as a natural result of alignment with God. No matter the circumstances, this is an available state. This is freedom. Trust, calm, creativity, flow...it's all as normal as oxygen when you're aligned this way. We need this. 

It's easy to look at life like a big lon...