From Desiring God In Christ, God made our hearts to burn for him. Though our affections rise and fall, and our zeal boils hotter on some days than others, coldness is not the Christian’s heritage. We ...  Read More

From the MarriageTrac Even though the years between forty and sixty-five do not represent the true middle of our lives—few of us will live to one hundred or beyond — midlife is a very real thing. Ther...  Read More

This is a question that I get asked many times a week.  Bump into someone at Walmart.  Sit next to someone at a football game.  I know the question is coming.  "So, how's the church?"  It's a fair que...  Read More

From the MarriageTrac Value His DifferencesBe devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10 NIVMy husband and I conducted a marriage enrichment conference one Saturd...  Read More

“Daddy” is my favorite name, and being daddy is the most rewarding position I have in my life. But a little over a year ago, after my wife lost her battle to breast cancer, I became “mommy” as well, a...  Read More

Do you know the difference between compassion and Biblical compassion?  Random House defines compassion as “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied...  Read More

Yes, kids need correcting. But on this day, I began to understand two things: Sometimes the heart needs to hear what it’s doing right. And, correcting is better received in small doses....  Read More

More and more, I’m met with the fact that parenting isn’t a formula, and every kid is very different. I can’t expect my adult children to parent their kids exactly the way I parented them. So, as a gr...  Read More

From the Parent Cue Let me guess. You feel like you really need to de-stress.Of course you do…you’re a parent.Pretty much every parent I talk to is tired. Well, more than just tired. Stressed. Deeply ...  Read More

Put any sixth-grade class up against the latest hit reality show and you’ve got yourself a real contest. Help your preteen tone things down a bit—and maybe even enjoy life a whole lot more—with these ...  Read More

It happens every day. A husband refuses to forgive his wife, because she just can’t see all the sins he ascribes to her. A wife won’t reconcile with her husband until he fully endorses her view of rea...  Read More

Watch a classic black-and-white movie, and you pretty much know how it’s going to end. In an old-fashioned Western, the white-hatted hero will ride into the sunset. A monster movie? The monster won’t ...  Read More

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...  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 proce...  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...  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 Missin...  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 beg...  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. ...  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 othe...  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 i...  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 comp...  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 bound...  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 ...  Read More