Our society puts a lot of pressure on mothers. There are a lot of expectations. A mother should be selfless and tireless and a ferocious advocate for her children. I know many women who struggle with feelings of inadequancy as mothers. If their children are not perfectly fed and dressed and smiling, they worry that others will think they are bad mothers. That's why it is always refreshing to hear or read a mother who openly confesses that parenting is very draining. It's hard work. Denying this doesn't help anyone.

Being a parent is a holy calling, perhaps the holiest apart from marriage. And it is hard work. Tanya Dennis tells the straight truth in a recent post about clingy children. It's worth a read.

"When kids get sick, they get clingy. Cuddling is great, but I need it in moderation. I like my personal space.

As a mom, I don't get much. I've come to terms with the fact I'll never use the toilet alone and will seldom take a shower without playing Peek-a-boo at the same time. There will always be someone touching me while I eat (usually with her feet) and another someone trying to steal my bed at night. Even household chores are group projects. I understand this is just the way things are and I'm okay with that. But after days and nights of touching and hugging and clinging and crying and synchronized poop sessions, I need solitude".... Read More.

In the Dailies - Discovering the extraordinary God in ordinary life.

Due to a technical glitch, not everyone received this newsletter. (Only 47 of you opened the newsletter.)

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Writer LL Barkat has described her journey to love God in such wonderfully poetic ways. Her blog, Love Notes to Yahweh, is filled with these poems. Her latest one touched my heart.

"I thought of what it is like to learn to love You. Some see it as a path, straight and narrow, simple to follow; growth is a formula from a book, a set of rules. And maybe I see it this way sometimes too. But this night I felt like one of those old trees in Your presence... my heart sometimes dark and serpentine... reaching, sprawling, curving, turning in on itself then outward towards You." Read More.

Love Notes to Yahweh - A place for prayer and devotion.

High Calling Bloggers have been invited to write about an experience we've had in a spiritual retreat. Those who do will be listed here. Check back because new essays will be appearing each day. This essay is one I wrote for Christian Century in 2005 following a retreat at Laity Lodge, one of my most favorite places on earth.
-------------------------------Real Live Preacher

About the closest you can come to silence is to become silent yourself and hope for the best. Close your eyes and forsake your vision. Let go of sight and your desperate need to see. Embrace hearing and you will begin to notice the many layers of the sounds around you...Read More.

Grief and Tragedy make us uncomfortable. We don't know what to say to someone who is grieving, but we feel we must say something. And so we often say things in desperation, hoping to comfort someone who, truth be told, cannot be comforted. Christian people often feel a need to answer for God and explain how God is involved or not involved with death and suffering.

My friend Sarah Bickle is losing her small son. He is dying of cancer. That's the reality of the situation. Sarah is also a deeply committed Christian. Sarah is a guest blogger at Real Live Preacher. Her post offers us a rare glimpse into the heart of a mother who is losing a child. She tells us what people have said to her, trying to comfort her. It's a hard thing to read, but something that you should read.

"During Thomas’s illness, we have been cared for by a lot of people of faith. Of course they are burdened with sadness for us and for Thomas. There is a secondary grief, however, that seems to flicker behind our saddest conversations. Questions like, “Why weren’t our prayers answered?” or “Why won’t God make Thomas better?” are unsaid but present.

Those are good questions, ones that theologians have been arguing over for hundreds of years. I don’t have any good answers, but I’ve had a lot of bad ones suggested to me since Thomas became ill. There are a couple theories that I pretty sure are bull-oney:" Read More.

I remember how I would feel as a semester of college came to an end. The moment after the last final was filled with such a sweet sense of freedom. I remember yelling, "I'm Free!" while I jumped in my car to head home for the summer or Christmas. I'm 46 years old now, and I still haven't experienced a more intense feeling of relief and joy.

I never thought of how the teachers felt. I confess that when I was a student, professors seemed like robots. Information-laden, lecture giving robots. They seemed very secure in themselves and far above me intellectually and socially. One of the things I love about reading professor J. Schaap's blog, Stuff in the Basement, is that after all these years, I'm hearing it from the teacher's point of view. In one of his latest pieces, he describes the "End of Sememster" blues.

"I'm not sure why I've got it, but at least I'm old enough to recognize the syndrome: I feel like some kind of eighth-rate teacher right now, facing my last week of the semester. I remember hearing about some world-class prof somewhere, someone so good that on the last day of class, his students gave him a standing ovation. I'll be lucky to crawl out of the classroom without being dismembered.

Look, if the truth be known, many of my students don't care a whole lot anymore, and neither do I. If the truth be known, I just want it over. I'm tired of selling goods to customers who look at me as if I'm in their way. I'm tired of all kinds of things, and, Lord knows, those students are more than tired of me." Read More.

Stuff in the Basement - Writer & educator J. Schaap writes about life and the things that matter to him.

Everyone talks about success. Even preachers nowadays. They have sermon series about how you can be successful with God. But how do we define success, exactly? The truth is, your definition of success is a window into your soul. Your idea of success will show you your true values.

High Calling blogger Every Square Inch has asked the question. What does success mean to you? Why don't you stop by and join the conversation by leaving a comment? We'd like to hear what you think.

I'd like to start an ongoing conversation about the topic of success - how we define it, how we pursue it and what it means to our lives. It might be a series of occasional posts or just a couple. Truthfully, I don't know where this will go but I thought it might be interesting...Read More.

Remember Art Linkletter's "Kids say the darndest things" bit? There is a reason why that was so popular then, and people still talk about it now. Because it's true. Children say and do things that surprise us. I am the father of three children. And I'm a pastor. Sometimes it can be a little uncomfortable when your child does something that seems a little...well, blasphemous. I remember when one of my daughters became convinced that an action figure looked like God. She walked around with this little "God" action figure for a time. It made me slightly uncomfortable.

Now that my kids are older, I've learned that children are just honest. They do not hold much back. It is a wise thing to give them a lot of latitude when it comes to their theological statements and actions.

Marcus Goodyear's son loves pirates. And that's cool. But what will he do when his son wants to plaster his Bible with pirate stickers?

"[My son] likes pirates. A LOT. Every day we play pirates at lunch. Nearly every night we play pirates. We hung cheap hammocks in our backyard, not because we want hammocks, but because pirates sleep in hammocks.

Then one day on the way to church, I discovered the pirate stickers on my son’s Gideon Bible. Hmmm."   Read More.

Good Word Editing - Marcus Goodyear is a writer and editor for the H.E.B. foundation.

Men and women typically use different body language and different voice cues when communicating. Many men have a tendency to be very direct, loud, demanding, and somewhat forceful. Men can be intimidating. I'm not talking about bad men here. I'm not talking about abusive men. I'm talking about good men, and I know something about men because I am one.

How many times have you been in a conversation and noticed men dominating it? And how many times have you noticed women hanging on the edges of the conversation. They might have great things to say, but it's too much work to force their way into the conversation.

As a Christian man, I try to watch for these things. I see them all the time, even at church.

High Calling Blogger Kim Quon is trying to be a good husband. He is a brave writer in this regard. Recently he's been writing about this very subject, about how men can display what is called "predator patterning." Check it out. Good men pay attention to this kind of thing.

"I've been writing about the overt aspects of predator patterning that may seem obvious to you (or maybe not). Even though they may be obvious, these patterns are not easily interrupted....Although this patterning is inwardly focused (selfish) it is usually not self-aware. In other words, because it comes so naturally, we don't know we're doing it when we're doing it. Guys, if you are doubting that you act out in this patterning, the best way to find out is to ask the one closest to you. Ask your wife." Read More

Preparation 4 Eternity - A blog for Christian husbands.