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Joyful Life Magazine
The Joyful Life Magazine posts inspiring devotions on Instagram (@joyfullifemagazine) and encouraging essays on their blog written by a team of gifted writers I admire and adore. I am honored to regularly contribute to both. Here you'll find a sampling of those essays and devotions.
Embracing the Uninvited
[Featured as The Joyful Life Daily Devotional] The rain battered the canopy of trees that border my backyard. The winds curved the limbs...
Marnie Hammar
Dec 13, 2022
Raising Expectations for Boys: What if ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ Was a Good Thing?
[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...
Marnie Hammar
Jun 20, 2022
46 Mom and Son Date Ideas: Fostering Connection Between You and Your Boy
[Featured on The Joyful Life Magazine] We’re bumping over the railroad tracks, heading to his soccer game, when my almost 11-year-old...
Marnie Hammar
May 20, 2022
Raising Teen Boys and the Ministry of Food (as Told by a Reluctant Meal Planner)
[Featured on The Joyful Life Magazine blog] My oldest thunked his soccer bag down on the counter, opened the fridge, and let out a...
Marnie Hammar
Feb 9, 2022
Riding the Waves of Raising Boys: How to Stop Being Controlling as a Mom
[Featured on The Joyful Life Magazine blog] I was sitting on my hospital bed, still wearing those blue hospital socks with the grippy...
Marnie Hammar
Sep 15, 2021
Lessons from the Shepherd About the Rod and Staff
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...
Marnie Hammar
May 6, 2021
The Ministry of Too Many Fish
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...
Marnie Hammar
Apr 5, 2021
For Those Days When Faith Feels Naive
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...
Marnie Hammar
Feb 22, 2021
Chasing Winter's Sun
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...
Marnie Hammar
Jan 16, 2021
The Weary World Rejoices
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...
Marnie Hammar
Dec 22, 2020
God's Answers in My "Why's"
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...
Marnie Hammar
Dec 10, 2020
The "Happy Jesus" Guy in the Chicago Loop
My first fancy job required a daily train ride into downtown Chicago. On Fridays, as I joined the throng emerging from the train station,...
Marnie Hammar
Nov 17, 2020
Learning Resolve from Fallen Leaves
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...
Marnie Hammar
Nov 9, 2020
The Way Out of My Mess
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...
Marnie Hammar
Oct 20, 2020
On Needing an Untamed God
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...
Marnie Hammar
Oct 2, 2020
Am I Doing This For God or With God?
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...
Marnie Hammar
Sep 25, 2020
The Sweetness that Comes When We Taste and See
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,...
Marnie Hammar
Sep 8, 2020
On Flourishing and Forcing
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...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 24, 2020
Finding Peace Even in Shifting Sands
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...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 20, 2020
The Hope of Happy Endings
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...
Marnie Hammar
Aug 11, 2020
On the Legacy We Leave
This year, when we piled everything into the car for our vacation, we added all five sets of golf clubs. As much as I don’t love how much...
Marnie Hammar
Jul 28, 2020
God's Work When Goals Sit Dormant
It’s been sitting there since March, its teal linen cover collecting dust, and its spiral-bound, tabbed pages stuck in the past. Every...
Marnie Hammar
Jul 10, 2020
The Ministry of the Ordinary
I feel it slipping away. Like an unstoppable tide, I see reopening arriving, and I fear what it will take with it as it rolls back out....
Marnie Hammar
Jul 2, 2020
The Little Big Things We Share
I walked into my office and found a yellow sticky note with a tiny penciled apology from my nine-year-old. During “school” at home that...
Marnie Hammar
Jun 3, 2020
Let Me Take and Eat
Every day they come, this family of deer that lives in the woods behind my very suburban house. They live in a small, narrow strip of...
Marnie Hammar
May 30, 2020
The Beauty Inside This Chrysalis
As I look out the window—the view from which has become a gift—and see the sidewalks that connect to the places I remember, I feel torn....
Marnie Hammar
May 19, 2020
On Longing and Abiding
[This post was featured over at The Joyful Life Magazine on May 15, 2020.] A year ago, my husband and I looked at each other over our...
Marnie Hammar
May 18, 2020
On Being Overtaken
For this suburb dweller, the winding country roads I drove offered refreshing contrast to my side-walked, manicured normal, with their...
Marnie Hammar
Apr 18, 2020
Lessons from Not Liking Birds
I don’t like birds. ⠀ ⠀ It’s a whole long tale that goes back to when I was 5 and there was a crow stuck under a bucket in my sandbox....
Marnie Hammar
Apr 16, 2020
Still He Commands the Sun
I slowly walked through my local grocery store. After seeing that the toilet paper aisle was empty, I filled my cart with an attempt at...
Marnie Hammar
Apr 5, 2020
Reclaimed, Not Perfect
When we chose the worn table that sits in our kitchen for sharing our family meals, we chose weathered barnwood beams that had lived a...
Marnie Hammar
Mar 31, 2020
A Softer Way for Wounds
We stood at the kitchen island cutting vegetables for dinner when I looked down at my youngest’s hand and saw a weird, gray spot. I asked...
Marnie Hammar
Mar 22, 2020
Throwing Darts, Receiving Grace
My middle son and his friend were playing in the basement, throwing darts and larger objects that should not be thrown—like plastic...
Marnie Hammar
Mar 15, 2020
On Measuring Ourselves
As I round the corner, I see my youngest holding a pencil and a cloth tape measure. He is leaning up against the molding that marks the...
Marnie Hammar
Mar 5, 2020
The Beauty in our Winters
It was winter when my grandfather died. As I prepared my heart for that goodbye, I bundled up for a brisk afternoon walk in the woods....
Marnie Hammar
Feb 2, 2020
Shiny Shoes are Should's
I remember those shoes. They were glossy white, patent leather, with straps that slipped into tiny buckles adorned with sparkly...
Marnie Hammar
Jan 19, 2020
His Majesty for Just Me?
I felt like a little kid when, on a recent flight from Ohio to California, I snagged a window seat. I’d look out and pretend that I knew...
Marnie Hammar
Jan 12, 2020
Oh, Come Let Us Adore Him
I stayed up late again to watch a Hallmark Christmas movie, ignoring the pile of dishes that had crawled from the sink to the counters....
Marnie Hammar
Dec 12, 2019
Lift Your Gaze
As the number that is my age climbs higher, the number of times that I can go around in circles sinks lower. So when we went on a fall...
Marnie Hammar
Dec 5, 2019
Looking in the Right Place
"Navy blue soccer sock, we know there are eight of you in this house, and yet, you have succeeded in eluding our search efforts once...
Marnie Hammar
Nov 21, 2019
Walking in His Light
As my kids packed their backpacks for school, I snatched a glance out my dining room window. The sunlight was just peeking over the...
Marnie Hammar
Oct 8, 2019
Faith or Fear?
As I sat on my deck, a robin foraged noisily through a wet pile of leaves in my yard, pulling my attention away from my heavy thoughts....
Marnie Hammar
Oct 7, 2019
The Appearance of Growth
I bought these adorable, low maintenance succulents that look so uniform that they appear artificial. As they took their place on the...
Marnie Hammar
Sep 29, 2019
Splinters & Stillness
My eight-year-old son sits next to the bathtub, his left foot resting on the edge, sobbing, “I hate my life.” We’re on day four of...
Marnie Hammar
Sep 24, 2019
Spiritually Dry Summer? Choosing Delight Over Checklists
Maybe this summer will be different. Maybe this time summer will be filled with long, glorious days of sticky s’mores and campfires and...
Marnie Hammar
Jun 7, 2019
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