My friends Ashley and George who run Tekeme Studios are a picture of reconciliation and healing. Here we are last November when I had the chance to surprise them at their home. I love them. George designed the header for Live Uncaged and does a lot of my design. Ashley? Well, she’s just a little [...]

Twenty-one years ago during what weather forecasters declared “The Arctic Express,” Patrick and I were married in the Seattle area. Not many of our guests could come because the hilly roads became an ice skating ring. Our sound system didn’t arrive, so we danced to a boom box (very quiet and pretty awkward). Our first [...]

Tomorrow is my daughter’s 19th birthday. Yes, 19 years ago, this Mary labored in the hospital with pain and worry and fretting and that anticipatory ache that accompanies new motherhood. She hollered her way into my arms a few hours shy of being my own baby in a manger, and she captured my heart in [...]

Augusta Brinkworth nearly breaks from grief when her husband is killed in a rock quarry slide, leaving her with a passel of children to feed in the throes of the Great Depression. Armed with detached stoicism, she disengages from the lives of her grieving children, pushing them away, while forces outside and within the family [...]

Dear Family, Friends and the Internet, 2011 has been a good year for our family. You can see by the picture below that we survived the early-in-the-year snowstorm:

This is a guest post by my friend Patti Richter. I know it will bless you! … Some people trim their Christmas tree after Thanksgiving dinner. They head out early on Black Friday and do all their Christmas shopping by day’s end. They have their family-photo-Christmas-cards in the mail by December 1st. Then there are [...]

And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger. Luke 2:12 NLT It seems logical, doesn’t it? That we should invite Jesus into our Christmas celebrations? But we forget. In our busy rushing, we disconnect from Him and fritter away our [...]

When we were in the throes of diapers and sleepless nights, I thought parenting was hard. When we came alongside our kids and their activities in elementary school, I thought the frenetic pace would not end. When we moved overseas and tried to parent a teen and two elementary aged kids, I thought my brain [...]

And I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Acts 20:35 NLT Because Christmas has become so commercialized, we’ve often resorted to drawing names or creating other ways [...]

 We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps. Proverbs 16:9, NLT Years ago, I sewed a calendar for us to use during the month of December, a sort of cloth advent calendar. Each day from December 1—24 we had a pocket where we slipped activities. Each year the kids take turns adding [...]