Dear Awkward, My wife is late for almost everything we do. I am the type that believes, “If you’re not 10 minutes early, you’re 10 minutes late.” Marital discord has become a consequence. Any advice? JimDawg Growing up, my mom set our kitchen clock ahead fifteen minutes to help us leave the house on time. …
Dear Awkward: Help! My Son Is a Failure.
Dear Awkward, My 23 year old son failed out of college last year and has been half-living his life since. He had a job as a sales clerk at a local sporting goods store, but then he got falsely accused of something and he quit. Then he went back to school for a little bit, …
Dear Awkward: Help! God said I would get married. I’m still single.
Dear Awkward, God spoke to me in 2017 and told me that a gentleman that attends church with me would become my husband. Well, it’s 2019 and it hasn’t happened yet, although God speaks to me frequently about the situation. My question is, what does God want me to do while I’m waiting? Why would …
Dear Awkward: Help! God said I would get married. I’m still single.Read More
The Change, My Mother, and Me: For The Same
I would experience menopause eventually. But who would I change into? Would I like that person when I met her?
Caring for People Has Led Me Smack-Dab into God’s Love
Here was my number-one priority as a new parent: I did not want to abuse my kids. It seems like a pretty obvious goal, but truth was, I didn’t trust myself to achieve it. As a kid, I witnessed just how easily violence can take root. So I read, and sought advice from friends, and …
Caring for People Has Led Me Smack-Dab into God’s LoveRead More
One Prayer God Never Wants You to Pray: For iBeleive
A few months ago, a reader emailed me a message that’s haunted me ever since. Her husband had been unfaithful several times and, from what I could tell from a short message, showed no sign of repentance. She struggled with trust issues, she said, and asked if I would pray God would help her trust …
One Prayer God Never Wants You to Pray: For iBeleiveRead More
Dear Awkward: My Kids Are Slobs. Help!
Dear Awkward, How do you get your kids to clean up after themselves? My kids are 12, 10 and 7 and I feel like I’ve tried everything over the years. Chore charts, reward systems, scolding, drawing attention to the mess, calling them back to do it again when it’s not cleaned up properly. IT NEVER …
Learning to Listen Well to the Low Notes in My Marriage
Not long after my husband Dyami and I got married, he bought a subwoofer. For those of you not conversant in audiophile jargon, a subwoofer is a speaker “dedicated to the reproduction of low-pitched audio frequencies known as bass.” The subwoofer was about the size of a large end table, heavy as all get out, squat, aggressively …
Learning to Listen Well to the Low Notes in My MarriageRead More
Feel Lost After Having a Baby? For iBeleive
I really, really wanted to enjoy motherhood. So let’s just say it was less-then-ideal when my husband found me wailing in the kitchen one morning at 4 am. He ran in, his eyes burning with the intensity of someone just woken from dead sleep to an emergency. “Is Lucy okay?” he asked, meaning our six-month-old …
You Have to Choose: For AndiLit.com
If parenthood were an economy, the currency would be sleep. You’d pay mortgage with REM cycles and buy groceries with naps. You’d fund college with any child that slept through the night. And, if you were like me, an insomniac with very wakeful daughters, you’d hoard sleep like Scrooge, clutching each second like newly minted …
Dear Awkward: How Do You Stay Sane with a Mentally Ill Person?
Dear Awkward, How do you deal with toxic or mentally ill people who have harmful behaviors and stay sane? You have no choice but to deal with them—they’re your family or your boss. How do you get them to seek the help they need? Or, to understand they have an issue? JP Dear JP, I …
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Anxiety in Relationships: Does this person threaten me?
I’m doing a five-part series on questions to ask about your closest relationships to figure out if they might be the root of some anxieties. You can see the whole series here. A friend of mine was sexually abused in high school. Her abuser kept her from ending their “relationship” for two years by regularly threatening …
Anxiety in Relationships: Does this person threaten me?Read More
Dear Awkward: Annoyed at Church
Dear Awkward, I am annoyed and irritated and bored at church. My husband loves it, but to me, our church feels like a big show: entertainment, choir performance, giveaways, and a superficial sermon. How do I look past the trappings and experience a deeper relationship with God? If other people love church so much am …
What Our Disappointment Wants to Teach Us
I’m amazed at how when I stop being afraid of my negative emotions they give me such helpful information about how to heal and live with integrity. My friend Dorothy Greco agreed to share some of her wise book on marriage with us on just that topic. She gracefully shares how disappointment can harm our relationship–or …
Why I Always Ask Permission Before Giving My Kids Advice: For iBeleive
I’d like to be a little more serene about holding my tongue than I am. Take the other day. My seven-year-old had a difficult interaction with another kid at choir practice. She felt angry and annoyed. She sat in the back seat; up front, I signaled a lane change to get to the freeway onramp. …
Why I Always Ask Permission Before Giving My Kids Advice: For iBeleiveRead More
Five Questions to Ease Anxiety In Your Relationships
Want to read this entire series? Go here. If you suffer from anxiety, it’s tempting to view it as if it were an addiction we bring only on ourselves. I thought this way for a long time—if I were a better, stronger, more intentional person, I’d be able to stop feeling anxious all on my own. …
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4 Lies I Believed About Anger: For iBelieve
It was a shock when I realized I was imitating a Biblical villain. I’d been married for about eight years when I studied the book of Esther with Beth Moore’s curriculum. A few weeks in, Moore talked about the story’s enraged anti-hero, Haman, identifying his meanness as the “spirit of Haman.” “As Christians,” Moore said, …
Breaking Bread with People Who Hurt You
My friend Jenna and I were chatting via email the other day, and she said I might want to write about this holiday phenomenon: “sitting at the table and breaking bread with those who have wounded us or settled us with emotional baggage or sent us into adulthood with stuff we’ve had to work through …
3 Questions to Simplify Holiday Dysfunction: For No Sidebar
My parents, two siblings and I haven’t eaten Thanksgiving dinner together since I was in elementary school, about three decades ago. The dysfunction in our family is deep and old. I’d like my family holidays to be easy. But this late in the game, I’m not holding my breath. However, even if easy isn’t possible, simple …
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The Power of a Single Question: For SheLoves
When I was little, I looked forward to my sister, Katie, coming home to visit. For nearly seven years—from fifth grade to her senior year in high school—Katie lived at a Christian children’s home called Sunshine Acres in Mesa, Arizona. The Acres cared for kids whose parents couldn’t care for them—kids who’d been orphaned, abandoned, …
When Holidays Stress You Out: For The Mudroom
You know what my idea of a holiday is? A normal day. Laundry, hanging with my kids, and, by 9:30 pm, watching a murder mystery with my husband while I eat raisin bran. Even better: doing all that in slippers. Normal days are easy. On a normal day, I have a routine. I know what’s …
You Can Be Weirdly Whole in the Worst Relationships
I’m acquainted with two families right now with bad marriages. What makes me ache is that (at least from my very outside, limited perspective), I don’t think there’s a villain in either situation. I see four lovely people who love God and want to love each other well; thoughtful, awesome people who happen to be …
You Can Be Weirdly Whole in the Worst RelationshipsRead More
I Am the Privileged: For SheLoves
I represent the people who get more than they deserve. The lucky ones. The golden children. The privileged, wealthy, and influential. Oh, my dears. How can I claim to be anything other than your sister? I know all about a life that’s unfair in my favor. Once, during my sister’s seven-year stint living at a …
Memory and the Miracle of Love
Do you ever worry you are not creating enough good memories with the people you love? I do: I wonder if my time with my kids is rich enough, or special enough. Wonder if I am intentional enough in cultivating friendships and sustaining bonds with my husband. And yet, sometimes, I think we worry too …