Your tree type and freedom!

Your tree type and freedom!

Freedom is the stuff of wars. What irony! People will give up almost anything for it. Freedom promises  both peace and joy at minimum and, to the mind of some, also power or prosperity. It's more often yelled than it is whispered because it is an inalienable basic right. I think we feel it in our genes that we should not be chained. On this fourth of July where independence is celebrated in the USA, I'm looking at…

Continue Reading Your tree type and freedom!

When God plants a Cape Gooseberry in Eastern Tennessee

When God plants a Cape Gooseberry in Eastern Tennessee

Cape gooseberries grew in my granddad’s garden and sometimes in our backyard. The deepest childhood pleasure came from scouting out the ripe and ready ones. They were the ones whose balloon-like sheaths had turned from green to straw-color. Peeling away the sheath was like opening presents on your birthday. The translucent, papery lanterns held golden delight - bulbs of sweet squirting juice that exploded in your mouth. Leaving more than just this childhood pleasure behind, our family moved…

Continue Reading When God plants a Cape Gooseberry in Eastern Tennessee

Finding the “off button” for crying kids

Finding the “off button” for crying kids

Do you know your child’s personality type? With Easter events behind us, I was again touched by how hard it must have been for our Father to hear the cries of a world dead in sin and ravished by evil, but also the cry of His only Son in agony, shame and abandonment on that cross. And to choose to heed our cry above His. What mercy; what strength! Strength is also what each parent needs for the…

Continue Reading Finding the “off button” for crying kids

The Vital Truth You Must Understand to Help Your Child Thrive

We've all seen parents trying to live vicariously through the lives of their children. A mom living her violinist dream through her daughter who would much rather be an engineer, or a dad pushing his son on the football field when the young boy would rather be a singer. It's hard for us to see when we want our kids to be just like us or want the things we want. It is subtle. We don't mean to…

Continue Reading The Vital Truth You Must Understand to Help Your Child Thrive

Praying for Fruit; Waiting for Harvest

Immediacy is one of my favorite things. I find deep happiness in a perky voice answering my call after only half a ring and in the same-day delivery option on Amazon. Wouldn’t parenting be a breeze if our efforts could bear same-day fruit? Imagine this: We’d call for generous sharing and – tadaaa! – our sons would offer their sisters half of their desert. Bliss. Well, I’ve tried teaching instantaneous good character, without success. When simply asking didn’t…

Continue Reading Praying for Fruit; Waiting for Harvest