My husband and I were chatting about our kids and he said, “We need to start thinking about saving for college.” College? What in the world would we need to be thinking about college for? I thought to myself. Then he said, “You know our oldest will be out of the house in about five years.”

Over the past several weeks I’ve had plenty of time to rest. It’s been a forced and required time for an empty schedule, one that I had planned to do in July but not because I had to! And it has been welcomed and needed. These past few weeks, I’ve slept and walked and reclined for more hours than I can number. And it got me thinking about some time I’ve spent abroad.

The pressure to try to save my children is off. I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to make them believe. But what I can do is faithfully speak the truth—and live it out before them. I can answer God’s call to train up children in the way they should go (Prov. 22:6). I can wait patiently for Him to work…

There are times when I’ve felt like nothing was going quite right. Relationships seemed hard and strained. Sickness wrecked my body and plans. And my mind had to fight hard to remember God’s goodness. In that fight to remember God’s goodness, I’d rehearse Paul’s rhetorical question in Romans 8: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (8:31). A rhetorical question is a question asked in order to create a dramatic effect. It makes a point, rather than seeking an answer…

This post continues my first draft series where I write the various things on my heart and mind without editing due to time and then I press publish. Did I tell you I have a hiatal hernia? I don’t write or talk about it much but if you’re around me, you’ll quickly see and hear the effects of it. I cough a lot and must restrict what I eat. A hiatal hernia occurs when the upper part of your stomach bulges through the large muscle separating your abdomen and chest (diaphragm). I know, lovely. I was diagnosed with it after receiving a procedure to determine why I had so much pain in my abdomen. And although I haven’t been officially diagnosed, I do believe that I also have celiac disease. I have all the signs and the one time I went completely gluten free I experienced a significant improvement in my quality of life.

There isn’t much I find more delight in than caring for my children. They are a joy to be with. I could listen to my daughter’s belly laugh and my sons deep, yet still child-like, voice chatter all day long. I have had four miscarriages and I do wonder if that loss has helped me to see just what a gift from God my children are to me. But even still, when I think about this wonderful responsibility and the joy of being a mother it’s not what defines me. I don’t define myself as a mom first and I don’t believe it would be good or helpful to my children if I sought to find my identity in them either.

Each day, each hour is a worthy fight to remember our greatest love in the world. One way for you and me to fight our temptation to wander toward lesser things is to remember the love and pursuit of God. Read more of my thoughts on this at Desiring God…

Recently, I was asked a peculiar but sincere question during an open-mic Q&A. The young white man asked: Can I celebrate my whiteness or my white culture? I quickly discerned both inquiry and pain. Later I would learn that the man is a single-dad, raising two young boys who he wants to equip and disciple well. He has also been trying to gain understanding about racial reconciliation and in many ways has found himself perplexed and maybe even weighed down by the realities of our history. I didn’t know all of that when I answered but I also sense this same wrestling with other people as they begin their own journey into ethic diversity, biblical theology, and historical sins…