Jill: The holidays are commonly known as the most wonderful time of the year! However, they are also the most filled with expectations. Your in-laws are expecting you to come by for brunch, your parents are expecting you for family time, there are holiday programs and...
Christmas holds a special place in our hearts. We just love the Christmas traditions, music, food, memories, and more that come along with the season of celebrating the birth of Christ! If you’d like to know what some of those traditions are, you can listen in to our...
Do you ever get the feeling that you are meant for something more? Or maybe you struggle with wanting to do something great, while longing for a simple, ordinary life. We can often feel the tension between these two and wonder if we have to sacrifice one for the...
Self-care has become an increasingly popular topic! One of my free ebooks is all about ten self-care strategies to help reduce stress and it just so happens to be the most downloaded. While most of us can agree that we need to take better care of our mental and...
Jill: I discovered Mark’s affair two months before the holiday celebrations started in 2011. (If you haven’t read about our dark season, you can find our 10-day blog series here.) That holiday was spent waiting, and it was a circumstance I never imagined....
Gift-giving doesn’t come easy to all of us. (If that’s you, I am right there with you!) I got to thinking this year, and I realized that I have been sharing some of my favorite things most weeks in my Life on the Edge of Normal newsletter. (If you...
Do you want to make Christmas extra special this year? To do this, things like giving special gifts, gathering the family in a certain way, or even decorating with intentionality may come to mind. But what if making Christmas special wasn’t about anything you did...
As the old saying goes, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I have the privilege of receiving a lot of newly published books in my mailbox, but rarely do I get truly excited about them. However, when I saw the cover of my friend’s new book, I couldn’t wait to...
Jill: It’s that time of year again. Christmas music is starting to play as tons of decor hits the store shelves. Mark: As the calendar begins to fill up with Thanksgiving meals, office parties, and plans to visit extended family around Christmas, it can be difficult...
The excitement of the holidays is hard to contain! Your young children are anxiously waiting to leap out of their beds to open presents on Christmas morning. Your adult children may be traveling home from college or coming to visit from their homes. You may be looking...
God is known as “the Comforter,” but in times of pain, it can be hard to feel like He is near to us. Those who experience ongoing pain know all too well that it reaches far beyond the physical body. Pain is felt emotionally; it’s felt spiritually, relationally, and...
We cannot heal what we don’t admit is broken. Yet too many of us pretend, perform, and try to appear perfect which keeps us striving instead of thriving. That’s a journey that I used to be on myself! I often say that my books are a result of my mistakes and personal...
Welcome to another bonus episode of the podcast! Mark and I like to share these bonus episodes every once in a while, and their purpose is to give you some quick encouragement and support that you can apply to your life. In this episode, we want to share something...
We often talk about restored marriages on this show because that is a core part of our story. However, we recognize this is not the case for every couple. Restoring a marriage takes two willing people, and if there is only one, the marriage may end in an unwanted...
As a full-time missionary ministry family–health insurance is not a given. When Obamacare became available we bought a policy through the marketplace. We quickly learned, however, that the “Affordable Care Act” was anything but affordable. Insuring...
