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Tell the Next Generation About the Lord
“You’re the writer. Take this,” my siblings said as we cleaned, sorted, and emptied my parents’ home after they both passed away. Everything that appeared to document their lives, ministry, and testimonies was stuffed into an overflowing box and handed to me. For three years the box sat in my office closet. My husband, the one who loves to take out the garbage, queried, “What are you going to do with it? You know someone’s just going to throw it away someday.” Despite that reality (which I accept), I finally opened the contents of my parents’ lives and dove in. I categorized and read, scanned and discarded. Ray Dubert’s baby…
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You’re Okay
The toddler in this YouTube sweetly passes on what others have said to her. For generations, mothers have often tried to soothe their fraught children with three simple words, “You’re okay.” As a child wails and reels from known and unknown causes, a mother will try to calm and reassure her child with, “You’re okay, you’re okay.” My mother probably said it to me, I said it to my children, and I watch them say it to their children. And their children will probably say it to their children. Mothers know more than their children, they know that things will be okay, things are not as bad as they seem,…
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How Mothers Reveal the Image of God
Motherhood reveals the image of God in a profound way. I witnessed my friend, Melissa, mother her kids. She peacefully prepared three plates of food for her young boys. Yogurt. Chicken. Ketchup. Noodles. They sat around and ate while trying to teach the baby to say “Bible” and instead he shouts, “Jack, Jack.” The room laughs. Later that night she held her toddler on her lap for sweet face-to-face time before bed. He curled into Melissa like her lap belongs to him. It does. Her arms, her face, her knees that bend low to listen. Her hands that hold the book at bedtime. In some ways her body belongs to her…
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Adoption—Not Plan B
All major life decisions should be made on a beach in Mexico. It was November 2015 and my husband and I finally had a few days alone after attending a family wedding. Unplugged from ministry, work, and everything else that competes for our time, we discussed our plans for family. I had finished seminary the year prior, he was partway through his doctoral degree, and we’d been married for four years. The timing seemed perfect. Neither of us, though, were what we would call, “spring chickens.” Having married later in life we were both over forty years old and, at that point, unsure of our options. But we talked and…
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Marriage and Mother’s Day- What They Have in Common
Love and respect are fundamental for a solid marriage. We are told by all the experts that in a marriage relationship, men need to be respected and women need to be loved. The Bible supports this but also commands us to love and respect both men and women. Since these things are essential for a happy marriage and commanded by God then it is imperative that part of training up a child in the way he/she should go must include teaching them how to love and respect well. As we teach children to love and respect their parents we are giving them the basic tools for building a lasting marriage.…
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Staying Home with Kids vs. Second Income
Not long ago, the Desiring God site ran an article titled, “Does My Family Need a Second Income?” The article began like this: “‘Will you stay home?’ This is the question I ask when I meet a postpartum mom wearing her weeks-old baby in a Moby Wrap or Ergobaby carrier. Whether the answer is yes or no, I’m glad for every opportunity to talk with new moms about what it will cost them to return to the workplace.” The article went on to talk about why women should stay at home with their kids. Some of the author’s arguments are worth exploring, because Christian parents have this in common: we want the best for…
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A Mother’s Greatest Calling
Today I'm happy to welcome guest blogger, Seana Scott. She's a seminary student, a mom of three, wife to Jason, and blogger at seanascott.org. I sat on the edge of my bed and wept. My first-born son, now two months old, lay in the other room sleeping. “God, I’m tired of feeling so sad.” “To obey is better than sacrifice” popped into my mind. I Googled the passage on my smartphone, grabbed the leather-bound Bible off the nightstand and read 1 Samuel 15:22–23. It said, “…To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and…
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A Mother’s Treasure
Recently Lynna and I flew home from Singapore, and, of course, we had to pass through security. We have gone through security in the toughest airports in the world: DFW, Kennedy, Heathrow, Tel Aviv, Frankfurt, Paris, Budapest, Hong Kong, just about every airport that is on some high level of alert due to terrorists. Since we’ve done them all and had every innocuous thing taken from us that could possibly be labeled high risk, we had no concerns as we approached Singapore security. We should have been concerned. I sailed through in no time flat and then discovered Lynna pulled aside as an agent tore through everything she had,…
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Home Sweet Home
This past week I walked away from a position I loved. Working has brought me so much joy, but after a year of going into an office, I found myself in a familiar place that makes my life seem perfect, but unbearable for those who live with me. I thrive in chaos. It’s the environment in which I grew up in and it makes me feel good about myself. Chaos feeds my selfishness and pride. I write better, work harder and I have my own way of doing things. When things got chaotic with me working, I planned everything from what time my girls needed to get up to what…
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This Daughter of Mine
Sometimes life brings dark, lonely moments that seem endless. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Like a contraction during childbirth, you breathe through it, screaming every second of that moment for a glimpse of relief. I’ve had many, many moments like that but nothing comes close to what I went through in 1997. In the midst of it all, a baby’s cry—God’s gift of mercy and grace in a living song. This Daughter of Mine Seventeen years ago today, God gave me a daughter. This daughter of mine, I’m nothing like her, but in so many ways she’s just like…
