From shopping, cooking, wrapping, and year-end work projects, we all have enough to do this week. Oh, and don’t forget cookies for the neighbors! Or the attempts to organize a chaotic house into some sort of shape before the family get-together. Or the efforts to keep the peace between contentious Uncle Harry and our reactionary…
Growing up, finances were often tight — so now that I’m older, I appreciate the financial sacrifice my parents made to take my brother and me to Hawaii for Christmas one year. Forty years later, my family still talks about that amazing trip. On walks along the beach I was sure I’d never seen water…
Christmas is coming! We are in the season of warmth, kindness, yummy eggnog, romantic Hallmark movies … and crammed schedules, equally crammed parking lots, crazy weather, and financial stresses. How can we keep our inner Cindy-Lou Who intact and avoid becoming a grouchy old Grinch? There are three little truths we’ve seen in the research…
A few years ago, I wrote a devotional book called Find Peace. In Day 9, which you will see below, I shared the story of close friends – “Lara and Aaron” – who were walking with love and grace through the excruciating experience of learning that Aaron had early-onset Alzheimer’s. Since that time, Aaron has…
I think we can all agree that in many ways this has been a brutal year. Or three. The war in Ukraine. Continued pandemic impacts. Unprecedented levels of anxiety. Spiking costs. But . . . there are also many ways in which this has been a time of grace. Marriages have been strengthened. Church attendance…
A Note from Shaunti: Did you know that November is National Adoption month? Recently I was looking around the table at our regularly scheduled staff meeting and I realized that four of my eight core staff members are adoptive families! Wow! I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside several of them over the years and…
