One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is spreading God’s love through gift giving! Most of the time, I’m not a huge fan of our consumerist culture which insists that I just need to buy more to be happy. But… I do believe that our consumerism can be redemptive! When we are thoughtful […]
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Now that Halloween is behind us, we are officially in the holiday season. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and Christmas comes on its heels. This was my favorite time of year as a child, and I still love it—but now as a mom, I understand how much work goes on behind the scenes to […]
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For many of us, fall ushers in a new kind of busy. We are finding our new rhythms for the school year. Extracurricular activities are starting up again. Seasonal holiday activities are on our minds. Home and garden projects demand our attention. And all of it crowds around our regular, daily to-do’s. We might miss […]
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This summer, my husband scoped out his family’s farm in Michigan for interesting rocks. Combing through the fields and woods on his family’s land, he discovered several rocks of interest, carting them up to the house in a wheelbarrow. I’m not sure how he sees the potential in these drab stones. I look over the […]
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One bright Tuesday as I walked my dog around our condo complex, I spotted a dad with his two young sons. In front of his open garage, he set out a shiny green bike for his preschooler and a red tricycle for his toddler. In the middle of their street, he had set up an […]
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Last week, a package came for me. Inside was a new Bible and a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. I could hardly wait to open both of them! It used to be that I would have categorized one of the items as sacred and the other as secular, and although I would argue that the Bible […]
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“Play with me, mommy!” I hear this a lot, and I bet you do too. Right after the earnest request, one of my boys will lead me by the hand toward their block tower, or superhero capes, or plastic doctor playset. In recent years, I’ve battled more than my share of beyblades, lost many Nerf […]
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In many traditional households across America, moms are carrying an invisible workload. We are “the rememberer,” the one who coordinates all the moving pieces that go into running a household. This looks like planning meals, monitoring the levels of shampoo and laundry detergent, setting the kids’ schedules, keeping the refrigerator stocked, booking medical appointments, and […]
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I step outside in the early morning hours, our eager dog by my side. We walk through grass glistening with dew past the barn and pasture where the horses are already grazing. There’s a bit of a chill to the air; the hay field ripples with the breeze. The sun’s first rays illuminate the mist […]
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Out of Place – Elisa’s Story The first time someone scoffed at me for wanting to live in the southeast U.S. I was in 11th grade. He said, “Oh, they don’t like us down there. They still call us Yankees.” So? I thought. It’s where I belong. From the time I was 16 years old […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 