It’s embarrassingly easy to point the finger in marriage and come up with a long list of ways your spouse isn’t meeting your expectations or measuring up. But have you ever flipped the question and asked yourself and God, Am I loving well? Am I loving like Christ has loved me?

After my dad’s diagnosis in May 2008, our family was blessed with a trip to the Philippines by a very generous friend. It was quite an experience for me, having never left the comforts of first world before. I was excited to see pieces of history from both my dad’s life and Mike’s, as well as spend some concentrated time with the whole family.

Those times were precious given that we suddenly had a heightened awareness that our days together were numbered. I was thrilled to journey outside of North America but I must confess I was a little nervous as both the men in my life warned me of the potential “discomforts” and teased me about not lasting a day.

Have you ever wondered, "How do I get him to change?" 

I did. I'm slightly/extremely ashamed of just how much I did.

How do I get him to serve at church? How do I get him to want to go to church? How do I get him to want to read His Bible? How do I get him to be more thoughtful? How do I get him to write in his journal? How do I get him to start doing this? How do I get him to stop doing that?

It's exhausting trying to be omnipotent. Perhaps you've done more than wonder — you've planned and persuaded, and, like me, discovered you in fact do not possess the same giftedness as the Holy Spirit. We can't make someone change, but oh, we are stubborn to try. We inform minds; we cannot transform hearts.

I'd be willing to bet if you didn't already know you couldn't change someone, getting married lead you to experiential knowledge of this truth.  

As a mom of four kids, 6 and under, I’m well acquainted with waiting, especially during the winter season when the 2 year old and 4 year old decide to exercise their independence.

I have a love/hate relationship with wintertime. Prior to having children, I loved winter. The coziness of a warm fire and a glass of cocoa set against the backdrop of a shimmering frost covered countryside was where it was at for me.

After having children, winter became a little less idyllic — a whole lot of time spent indoors, kids going crazy, momma trying desperately to keep small people healthy and sane, and a lot of waiting.

Every morning on December 25th from 1983 until 2008, we paused Christmas to give full attention to celebrate birthdays. Wrapping a birthday gift in Christmas paper was highly frowned upon, punishable by shaming. For that one hour, we celebrated their birthdays.

Before returning to Christmas morning, there was the annual picture of the celebrants, my twin sisters sitting on each of my dad's knees. As you can imagine, they fit a little easier in the younger years, but tradition lived on. We have almost 25 pictures of them on my dad's knee, including when his face barely poked out from between his adult twins perched on his knee. 

And then came May 5, 2008— the day he realized he would see Jesus sooner than he thought, and August 17, 2009— the day he actually did.

Christmas wasn't the same. 

Why I thought it was a good idea to purchase a real tree once we had small people to haul out in the freezing cold, and have the extra responsibility to keep the tree alive in addition to them, and clean up after a tree in addition to them, I'm not sure. But off we went. 

We headed out with our then 8 month old baby to buy our very first and very frozen real tree. 

I racked my brain to remember the steps for successful experience from lot to house. I remembered my dad always letting it thaw in the garage but I couldn't remember why so I figured it couldn't have been that important, plus I was impatient and eager to get the thing decorated.

My brilliant solution: let is thaw inside. It's warmer than the garage and will thaw faster.

To make a long story short, it did thaw faster with the added bonus of puddles of water and piles of wet, dead pine needles everywhere. It was. huge mess and my amnesia was cured.