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life skills

Review: Prayers that Changed History by Tricia Goyer

Tricia Goyer, homeschooling mother of many, wrote this unique devotional church history book to teach children about prayer and to encourage them to pray.  She focuses on historical characters whose prayers had wide ranging and long lasting effects, and her refrain is, “And history was forever changed.” There are various aspects to this book.  Children—and […]

Noticing Miracles

Life is full of miracles, but we so seldom see them.  Especially when daily details discourage us, dragging our eyes downward, or pain stuns us, blinding us to blessings. Yes, it is so easy to focus on everything but the good gifts God gives us, on the irritating, the mundane, the horrifying, or even the […]

Just a Glass of Water, and a Smile

Recently, during an exceedingly difficult afternoon, a stranger kindly asked me if I needed anything.  A glass of water, perhaps? I hadn’t realized I was thirsty, but he had.  He saw the need for water—and the need for encouragement—and provided both. Just a simple glass of water.   Just an encouraging, compassionate smile. But it added […]

Review: Smart but Scattered Teens by Guare, Dawson, and Guare

Perhaps you have one of them, a teen who is bright but just can’t seem to get things together.  Sometimes I suspect most of us, parents and teens, are scattered in one way or another.  But some struggle in a deeper way with executive skills, ‘the functions of our brains and thought processes that help […]

Catch Up, My Goal for 2016

Some years I have very lofty goals.  Other years, and 2016 is one of them, my goals are much more mundane. In 2016 my goal is to catch up: to catch up on all the things I have started that need finishing, and to decide which ones not to finish, to find more effective ways […]