Tomorrow, I will hopefully be waking up in my new home, living a new dream of five acres and trees and a pond and the promise of chickens and goats in the spring. Today, though, I am sitting in a house littered with boxes and stuff I don’t know what to do with and stuff … Continue reading
By Jennifer Mills-Knutsen Have you seen the trendy new poem-statement-manifesto that people are posting in their homes (and on Facebook and Pinterest)? You can buy them from all kinds of Etsy shops and online crafters, as signs or vinyl wall decorations. They are often referred to as “House Rules.” I don’t have one in my … Continue reading
August 21, 2013 In a previous post, I talked about the prayers that I routinely sing with my children at bedtime. There’s another bedtime practice I seem to have developed lately: getting them riled up. It goes like this: as my two children are going to bed, they each always want me to come in … Continue reading
![[the] Breathing Room](https://practicingfamiliesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/breathing-room.jpg?w=290&h=290&crop=1 "[the] Breathing Room")
We have recently weathered a transition from California to Oregon. With the right mindset, moving can be seen as an adventure. Some aspects of the process just plain stink, though, no matter your attitude. Taping up boxes. Playing “Tetris” with packed boxes while trying to fit your belongings in the ever-shrinking truck. Eating out more, … Continue reading
We live hundreds of miles from our closest relatives, which means that my son only sees his grandparents, aunts, uncles and extended family one or two weeks every year. He’s the only grandchild on my husband’s side, and the only one of his generation—which means my husband’s aunts and uncles also lavish him with gifts … Continue reading
While playing at her water table this morning, our young daughter took a truck in one hand and a cup filled with water in the other. As she dumped the water over her truck she looked up at me to say: “I baptized it!” Two months ago when I was leaning her head back under … Continue reading
While we were farmsitting for some Old German Baptist friends this past weekend, I remembered, while I was walking down to the pasture to try to nudge the cow up to the barn, that I had a post due over here at Practicing Families this week. I wondered and pondered as I trudged down the … Continue reading
No person has taught me more about what spiritual formation is and should be than Dallas Willard, a remarkable teacher, writer, thinker, and disciple of Jesus. We lost Dallas last week, and for me and so many others it is difficult to conceive of a world without his great influence. Although I had only a … Continue reading
I have several sons, five to be specific, and an activity that I share with them, as often as we’re able is camping. Where most of us have lived a majority of their time on earth, has rather cruddy camping. There’s a lake or two nearby, but the terrain, the weather, and the vistas really … Continue reading
“The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a … Continue reading
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