Journaling: Where Do I Begin? (Podcast #23)

Have you always wanted to keep a journal but haven’t known where to start? Maybe you have a stack of journals that you started and never finished. Maybe you are a journaler who is currently uninspired. If so I hope you will find this podcast a jumpstart to a transformative journaling practice. Journaling is the…

An Invitation For You

Dear friends, I have been daydreaming about sitting in a cafe, sipping coffee with a group of kindred friends with open journals on the table, talking about life and working through ideas that are just under the surface. It hit me a couple of weeks ago that I have the power to actually make this…

Rhythms: Making Space for Beauty in Everyday Life (Podcast #22)

Life doesn’t slow down. Every day there is an inexhaustible to-do list waiting for me. There are needs and questions pressing in–about homeschool, health, children’s needs, creative projects, this house, community, adventure, prayers and plans for the future… One thing I have learned in my life is that I have to create rhythms for myself…

Choosing a Life of Celebration (Podcast #20)

The choice is always before us: A life of desperation or a life of celebration. In today’s podcast, I invite you to celebrate your life and to celebrate with me as I look back over this incredible last year. I am truly overflowing with gratitude as I remember the love and faithfulness of God in…

A Place of Peace (The Sacred Everyday Retreats)

Dear friends, I have just rounded the corner on my 10th year of blogging. A decade literally flew by in a blur of having babies and raising children, recording albums, making thousands of meals, filling hundreds of journals, waking up at 4 a.m. to write and find my peace in the midst of all the…

I Stand in This Breath of My Life

I am alive. I’m trying to let that sink in. I inherited the unfinished sketchbook of a beloved art professor who passed away last spring. Flipping through the pages this morning, I see how alike we are in our interactions with the blank pages–line drawings, quotation marks surrounding deep theological ideas and questions, to-do lists,…

Enter Your Year With Vision: An Online Journaling Retreat

Friends, we are about to start a new year, and I want to enter into it with purpose and a clear vision of how I can step into the role that God has designed for my life. I feel a deep need to quiet the noise, take a holy breath, and pray, journal, and reflect…

Early Morning Read Alouds

Have you heard about my newest project? It’s called Early Morning Read Alouds. In these daily Facebook Live videos, I sit at my kitchen table (after just rolling out of bed around 4:30 a.m.) and share my heart and writing. I love doing this! And I am honestly a little surprised that I have been…

Flashback to Sixteen (Through the Lens of My Journal)

Flashback to sixteen. I had almost forgotten this season of great sorrow that I experienced in my childhood and early teen years. My memory has softened, and I tend to look back and summarize my childhood as a happy one. I was loved, cherished by my parents, befriended by my eight older siblings. The hardest…

Wake Up and Make Things

It is early morning. I stole away from the nursing baby and am sitting in my little quiet corner of the world, on my back-deck, surrounded by potted plants and birdsong. I am writing and contemplating my messy life. I am a homeschooling mother of seven children. My husband and I have a home business…