For Crying Out Loud

Several years ago, our pastor encouraged our church family to begin observing and celebrating the Lent season.   This was not a part of the Easter season in the churches my hubby and I had grown up in, and we were curious to learn more about it.   We honestly had never given thought to Lent, and were eager to initiate new Easter traditions into our home.   The more thought we gave it, the more it just made sense.   As a family, we spend several weeks anticipating and celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas... why should we give His death- which bought our salvation!- less attention?   In the past, we’d talked about the importance of truly focusing our hearts on the Easter season, but had no luck coming up with a way to make it a truly special  season , not just a special weekend. Enter, Lent 2005(ish). We began to look intently into the origination of this special season and it struck a chord with us. As a family, we began observing Ash Wednesday, ...

It all started on New Year’s Eve, 2010, when our oldest daughter casually said, “ Why don’t we see how much we can give to others next year? ” Surprised and proud of her, we thought it sounded like a wonderful idea, and we adopted the family motto for 2011 “ How can we help ? ” As a family we decided that when we saw a need, that's the question we would ask ourselves. When we had people over or went to someone's house, our attitude would be the same, "How can we help?" Giving to others takes many different forms and were excited to see what the year would hold. Over the next 12 months, unbeknownst to my family, I made notes of ways we had given each month. I didn’t note them as they happened, but at the end of the month I would brainstorm the ways we had given of our time, resources, encouragement, etc. The goal was not necessarily to make a list (and definitely not to show anyone else the list), but to make our kids aware of what one little family can do, when t...

Seven  by Jen Hatmaker, was in my stocking on Christmas morning and finished by the 27 th . To say I was excited is an understatement. Not only is Jen a phenomenal author, but also a dear friend. We met in college nearly  20 years ago and she is the real deal! She lives out what she believes.   In Seven , I was captivated by Jen’s transparency, passion and humor from the get-go.   In an effort to avoid being a spoiler, I’ll give enough scoop to dangle a carrot…then let you go get your own copy!  Jen was tired of the way she and her family were living and consuming, so she decided to do something about it.   They embarked on an experiment that took nearly a year, and involved 7 different fasts, pertaining to 7 different areas in which they felt out of control.   Food, clothes, cash, giving, green living and stress were just a few of the areas under attack. Her husband and a loyal group of girlfriends   jumped on-board, along with her kids f...