Another year has come and gone. Another Christmas season has passed. Maybe the busy holiday season has felt like a whirlwind; you wait for so long and then it's here one moment and gone the next. Maybe your heart is full from all the gatherings and expressions of love. Maybe you're looking forward to getting back to the normal routine again. Maybe you need a break from all the gatherings for a little while. Maybe you're disappointed by the post-Christmas letdown. Regardless, the New Year...

I got to go to a conference our denomination offered this month in Florida and I wanted to share some of my experiences for you all. I plan to share more later, but this can serve as a little preview. For those who are wondering, it was only warm for half a day, then we all needed to bundle up again. The folks from Florida in particular were struggling with this cold that had blown down from the North (sometimes blaming us Northern pastors for bringing the cold with us). Anyways, the...

This week I was commiserating with another parent the reality that life with kids means the house is always a mess. Especially when they are young, kids can be like little tornadoes wherever they go, leaving messes everywhere for us to clean up. No matter how much we try to teach the importance of cleaning up after ourselves, the impulses to dump the bins of toys on the floor and run off to do something else are sometimes just too strong. No matter how much we try to keep things in order, it...