I used to wonder why so many marriages ended in divorce. Why so many of my friends through grade school, high school, and college were the children of divorce. And then in the years after college, why so many of my peers had already been divorced.And then I married. And like any other married person, I suddenly felt how painfully hard communication can be between a man and a woman. I groaned over ...  Read More

All living things grow. With human beings, we watch babies learns to crawl, to walk, to talk. We grow from total dependance on our parents to eventually being parents are ourselves. The maturing process is a journey to independence.Our spiritual journeys are just the opposite. We start off in rebellion against God, thinking we are fully independent from Him.Spiritual maturity, then, is the process...  Read More

“Relationships make life rich!” That is true always but now more than ever, we need the richness that relationships bring.  Read More

In Charles Dickens’s classic Great Expectations, Pip meets the cruel and contemptuous Estella, who tortures him throughout the novel with unrequited love. But Pip doesn’t really love Estella. He loves what she represents — a stratum of society to which Pip hungers to belong. Pip is blinded by his swollen expectations, and only later comprehends the true cost as he remembers the day he met Estella:...  Read More

Enter a room full of six- and seven-year-olds and you’re bound to spot one thing right away: the cute little gaps of kids who whistle while they talk. Forget calling it first grade. This is the Missing Teeth Club. And the similarities don’t stop there. Here are five things all first graders have in common and what you can do to leverage this phase of life.  Read More

People of all ages have feelings and we want our kids to respect and honor those feelings. After all, empathy informs how our kids interact with the world at large—especially as they grow. We can begin to plant the seeds of empathy now that will serve our kids and others for a lifetime.  Read More

From The Fierce Marriage The path toward repairing and rebuilding trust is neither easy to find nor quick to travel. Your heart hurts and your relationship seems like it will never be the same again. Could it be that God wants to use this difficult time to show you more of his mercy, goodness, and grace? Could it be, that this could make your marriage better than ever before? Listen in as the Fier...  Read More

From Lifeway People often use the word “encourage” without thinking about what it really means. “Be encouraged, it could be worse,” we are told. “Don’t be discouraged; hold your chin up,” we tell others. But what does it really mean.Encourage comes from the Old French en (make, put in) and corage (courage, heart). Literally it can be understood as “make to be heartened” or “put courage into.” It i...  Read More

From Fierce Marriage Relationships are complicated, aren’t they?As a single girl navigating the murky waters of dating, I’ve found myself crying on my bed more than once over the years, asking, “Why is this so hard?” From a breakup that shattered my heart, to getting ghosted by a guy I admired, to the daily decision of seeking God for contentment and joy in the midst of singleness— I know how comp...  Read More

From Fierce Marriage When things are in alignment, everything runs smoothly. But when one piece of the puzzle is missing— or one moving part of an engine is out of place— the whole system becomes compromised. My husband and I hit rock bottom in our marriage before we recognized that our priorities were way out of alignment.  Perhaps you feel this in your own marriage right now.  Maybe you have no ...  Read More

From XO Marriage Work is a necessary part of life, and it’s a huge blessing when we love our work and our workplace. Naturally, we spend a lot of time there, and how we conduct ourselves and the boundaries we have—or don’t have—in place will either protect or end up hurting our spouse and marriage. So, we need to be aware of the pitfalls, so we can avoid them. Here are 5 common workplace habits th...  Read More

Last week, Kristi and I took our baby to her orientation at Baylor.  Yes, we have another Bear in the family.  (I'll save the story on that for another day.  It's a good one.)  At the orientation, we enjoyed many seminars that will help Bekah thrive and help us survive without her.  During one the seminars, they had a student panel share with the crown.  One of the students, a Premed student, said...  Read More