[Featured as The Joyful Life Daily Devotional] The rain battered the canopy of trees that border my backyard. The winds curved the limbs...

[Featured on The Joyful Life Magazine blog.] He grabbed the rungs on the ladder for the big slide when another boy started to pull on...

[Featured on The Joyful Life Magazine] We’re bumping over the railroad tracks, heading to his soccer game, when my almost 11-year-old...

[Featured on The Joyful Life Magazine blog] My oldest thunked his soccer bag down on the counter, opened the fridge, and let out a...

[Featured on The Joyful Life Magazine blog] I was sitting on my hospital bed, still wearing those blue hospital socks with the grippy...

All those years in church, all those sermons on Psalm 23, and I still never got it.⁠ ⁠ Somewhere along the way, when I read, “Your rod...

Jesus knew how to make a scene, didn’t He?⁠ ⁠ He’s sitting in Peter’s boat, just finished with teaching a crowd on the beach, when He...

There are days when my faith feels naive. Days when the tragedy and darkness of this world feel more real than my citizenship in His...

In winter, I play a little game in my house. It’s a secret game—one that I didn’t even know I played until recently. It’s called: “Wander...

My rush to pull out the ornaments and set up the tree and string the lights isn’t actually rooted in holiday cheer this year. The allure...

I was on my knees again over one of those confusing, painful situations that just hasn’t resolved. I was asking God, again, why He had...

My first fancy job required a daily train ride into downtown Chicago. On Fridays, as I joined the throng emerging from the train station,...

My footsteps cracked acorns as I came up the hill. The morning light highlighted the greens and reds and golds ahead of me.⁠ ⁠ I delight...

I used to hate the question, “Have you prayed about it?” Because when people would ask me that, most likely, I hadn’t. I loved Jesus, but...

I used to want a “tame” version of God. My love for checkboxes and predictability and control was drawn to the parts of God that I could...

I was camped out in the ER with a teenage boy who did not belong to me. During a flag football game gone wrong at the senior high...

For years, I’ve stared down pineapples at the grocery store, telling them that I’d enjoy them more if they’d just be a bit, you know,...

Late last summer, we planted a new hedge. Well, bushes that would grow together to form a sort of hedge-type thing, anyway. For almost a...

I never thought I would buy face masks at Old Navy. Or sneak a side-eye at the current supply of toilet paper at Target. Or gravitate...

When I was a child, one of my favorite books had a hardbound gray linen cover with embossed gold lettering. Inside, bound in between the...