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A Few Miscellaneous Announcements

4:00 am By

I’ve been writing my brains out, but it hasn’t shown up here yet because it has all been prep for exciting things coming in May (I think). One writing project (the one I’m not sure will be ready to share in May) I am not at liberty to share just yet, so you’ll just have to sit around, wring your hands,  and wonder (cuz I know that’s what you’ll be doing, right?).

  • I’ll be writing at Deeper Story next week. I mentioned a month ago on Twitter how I was working on one about women and church, and then I didn’t actually post on women and the church. That post needed to simmer for awhile. A long while. It’s coming together now, and I’m excited to share it with you.

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  • I’m excited to be joining a new website that launches Sunday called The Well-Written Woman! I will be posting there the first week of the month as well.

"We're all a little wrong [somewhere] and God loves us anyway (but he is amilleniallist)

  • Have you heard about the Rally to Restore Unity? I love this idea to refocus on essentials and poking mild fun at one another instead of engaging in verbal warfare and dismissing “enemies” that has characterized Christian dialogue recently.(Do you like my sign? Did you laugh? Snort a little? Maybe?)

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  • I’m finishing up a book I cannot wait to share with you. We’re doing a group book review on Deeper Story in the next couple of weeks of Andrew Himes’s “The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family“ and let me tell you. It’s good. The kind of good that hurts a little, makes you think a lot, and explains so much about how evangelicalism got to where it is today. You should pre-order it now.

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  • Sunday I am starting a new reading project. I’ve been wanting to do this for several months now, but the time wasn’t right. Then a friend emailed me yesterday and asked me to pray for a good friend of hers who has gone from being a staunch atheist to a religious columnist. Travis has committed to reading the Bible through, from cover to cover, in 90 days. I’m praying for him, and I’m reading the Bible in 90 days too. Please pray for him, for those of us joining him in reading, and consider reading along as well.

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Filed UnderFaith and Doubt 3 Comments

Photo Journal of Joy

4:00 am By

I’ve been counting gifts this year (I typically share these on Mondays, but this week I had no post in me the first day after Holy Week), seeking the little ways God shows himself good in the every day. Today, Bonnie (who blogs at The Faith Barista) asked us to share a photo journal of the things that bring us joy. I enjoyed putting together a few pictures of these little gifts.

 

us on a rare date nightThis man loves me at my best, my worst, my most un-live-with-able.
He is funny and wise, loves God and his family, knowing when to be light and when to be serious.
I’ll let you in on a secret: I could stand to be light far more.

 

The silliness of my children gets me laughing better than almost anything else (except my husband, but we’ve already discussed that).

 

They are quite good at silliness…

 

…as you can see…

 

…each one in their own unique way.

 

stack of booksBooks, reading, writing, words… these things bring me joy.

 

Creation – the gardens, flowers, vegetables…

 

mountains, rivers, forests, oceans. I love to soak up the beauty of the earth because I feel close to God in the presence of natural beauty.

 

What about you? What brings you joy?

 

FaithBarista_FreshJamBadgeG

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Filed UnderFaith Jam 15 Comments

The Before-the-Sex-Talk Talk with My Son

4:00 am By

The Kissphoto © 2007 Renee | more info (via: Wylio)

 

We’ve tried to be very forthright with our kids about everything from chronic illness to fertility to death. We have always intended to extend that policy to sex, as well. However, I still feel like I was just caught with my pants down.

My 8-year-old son was showing his siblings a photography advertisement including a photo of two kids kissing. He said things like, “Ew! Look at that! So gross!”

Then he said, “She’s going to get pregnant.”

Without thinking, I retorted, “Kissing isn’t how you get pregnant.”

Oh yes… he did.

“How DO you get pregnant?” he asked.

Oh crap. I’m not ready for this.

I stalled. “Well, it’s really complicated and very cool. Let me think the best way to explain it.”

Stay calm you fool! Don’t act scared and don’t act nervous. Think, girl!

“Girls have eggs. Kind of like birds, except we don’t lay them in nests,” I began. “We keep them inside our stomachs. Remember how my belly got really big when your brother was inside there?”

He nodded.

He seems relaxed. Keep breathing.

“Well, boy have seeds. They are like little fish and they swim. The little fish…” I paused, then decided to use the real term. “The little fish is called sperm and it has to swim to the egg. If it gets there, it breaks through and becomes part of the egg.”

He interrupted with something about birth marks and how boys and girls have birth marks.

I shook my head. “No, birth mark isn’t the right word. See, there’s this stuff called DNA that says what you’re going to look like and if you’re a boy or a girl. An egg has half the DNA and a sperm has the other half. When they get together, you get a complete set and then they start dividing. It’s really cool. Then after about 40 weeks, you have a baby that is old enough to live outside the mommy’s tummy.”

Please don’t ask how the sperm gets to the egg. Not tonight.

He didn’t. Yet. But I know his little mind is thinking and one day, he will come up to me and say, “So mom, I have a question. How does the sperm get from me inside a girl’s tummy?”

Got any dos or don’ts I should remember on that day?

 

Edited to add: Great suggestions and book recommendations in the comments! Thanks so much for sharing, friends.

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Filed UnderHumor, Kids, Parenting 34 Comments
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