I feel like the past few months have been an ongoing spiritual tutoring session, during the "birthing" phase of creating my online resort. One thing I've noticed is that inspiration (thankfully) doesn't just dump on you like a big tsunami. It pours in slowly, as capacity to handle it expands and as ...

Loss hurts.

We don’t have to gloss over it just to make it look like it doesn’t.

When we lose a meaningful connection—when life as we know it ends—our world changes.

We have to adjust.

This takes time and space.

Give it what it needs.

Let it be heavy.

Lean on the rock of Jesus Christ. Cry on His sho...

We attended "back to school" night for our high schoolers last week, and something we heard in the girls' choir class stood out to me. 

"You'll see your students' grades kind of go like this," their teacher said, making an up-and-down motion with her hand. "This is by design."

Sensing the rising intri...

Have you ever watched a bird take flight? 

There's a jump and a few wing flaps, and it's airborne. Larger birds like swans and geese take more of a run than a jump because of their size, but even then it doesn't take much.

Their natural design -- strong muscles in the chest and feathers that catch the...

The toddler who is learning to walk doesn't ask for help.
The loving parent simply reaches down and offers a finger to hold. 
Tiny feet, chubby thighs, wobbly knees all work together as they learn to fight gravity -- 
all while the loving parent smiles, delighting in their progress
because they know th...

You can get a decent view of the sunrise if you're facing South, but you might wonder where all of the bright colors are. Turn 90 degrees to your left, and all of a sudden, bam! Right there, all along, are the vibrant corals, pinks, purples, oranges, and blues you had hoped to see. 

If we're not gett...

The last 48 hours at our house could be summed up with 1 word: unexpected.

Nothing major, and a good variety ranging from potentially-amazing to, "Oh wow. That actually happened."

At either end of the spectrum and everywhere in-between, we had expected something different. If we had been clinging to o...

It's "back to school" day here in Virginia, and last night we bid farewell to the amazing summer break we enjoyed. This was probably my favorite summer we've had so far (more to come in a future post about the details), and it would be bittersweet to say goodbye if I didn't feel like we could build ...

Embryos look more like aliens than babies, but we know this is the first phase for every human. We don't doubt that, even though it starts out looking nothing like we envision.

Our creative projects are similar. They start out looking like aliens, with all kinds of potential that we don't see. We wan...

If you're going to create a painting, you won't start with every bit of color on your palette. You'll start with the background, then work your way forward, one layer at a time. Don't assess the beauty or value of the painting by what the first layers look like. Work your way forward, adding more de...

If you didn't catch the sunset yesterday, it doesn't mean God is punishing you. It might just mean you weren't available or positioned to see it (He loves you enough not to force you to get outside and enjoy it).

Sometimes we scratch our heads and wonder what we did wrong, when things aren't going th...

We don't get to demand to see the valley from the summit just because we're worthy of witnessing the grandest views. That's not how God works. 

God wants the grandest views for us. He knows the simultaneous peace and exhilaration this experience brings.

He also knows what it takes to get there: one fo...