Sunshine in My Nest

This is the last challenge of the summer, and it may be one of my favorites. Along with it comes an encouragement to carry this challenge into the fall. We are commanded in the New Testament to meet with other believers because of the way it strengthens and encourages us. My favorite verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, tells us to “Encourage one another and build each other up.” My family has done this w...

Join the Challenge ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and share with a friend! My summer has looked nothing like what I expected. I had 5 days of middle school, two days at home, then 5 days at a conference. That was the expected part, what I didn’t expect was to be trusting God into buying a new home on land and nestled in the trees.   All the things being placed in my hands are good things, but it’s also forced me to say, “...

Join the Challenge ⁠⁠⁠⁠ and share with a friend! My experience with getting later into summer is that the quiet, laziness of the days has finally sunk in. The frantic activity of May has passed and the first of the summer trips are over. Our Summer Faith Challenge is a fun one this week. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure. Either invite someone over for a meal orMake cookie dough and freeze balls of...

Join the Challenge ⁠⁠⁠ and share with a friend! Our Summer Faith Challenge this week is to examine the way we think about our bodies and aging. 1 Samuel 16: 7b tells us that “... the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”   Summer is a time when it is easy to be fixated on how we look and be overly aware of our bodies. There are a lot of a...

Join the Challenge ⁠⁠ and share with a friend! Our second Summer Faith Challenge is to use words that are kind, or to ask forgiveness and repair when they aren’t. I could probably use this challenge every week of the year, but I want to focus specifically on encouraging words with a kind tone this week. My mom had a verse from Eph 4:29 she would quote tous likely every day “Do not let any unwholes...

Join the Challenge ⁠ and share with a friend! Our first challenge for the summer is “trust.” Summer is a time that I struggle to trust, and I’ve heard it is for you too. Our schedule is off, and we have to pack and plan for trips. Everything feels a bit more out of control Often, though, we forget that and think we have to solve the world’s problems or our own for everything to work out. We spend...

Join the Challenge and share with a friend! Usually, during the summer, I take a break, but this summer, I’m curating ways that I would like for us to grow together in faith.   Every episode on the Sunshine in My Nest Podcast this summer will have an email that goes with it and will be a series of relational challenges that will help you to love God and disciple your kids, grandkids, or the women...

I grew up with attendance in a wide smattering of church denominations. It got to the point where my parents, when someone asked what denomination they identified with they would say they were "Bapa-Lutha-Terian." Even now my favorite thing is over the summer, we have a break from some of our church responsibilities, and we often choose to visit the churches of our friends around the cit...

It can be easy to think of education as preparation for tests and careers. But what if the bigger goal was fostering creativity and virtue in our children? No matter how you educate your kids, you as the parent are teaching them these things. The things you choose to spend time and money on show them what is most important and valuable. Today, Jennifer and I discuss people from history and what ma...

There are many experiences in our lives as humans that transform us fully into an entirely different person. Times like our wedding, we wish we could live again. Others, perhaps like the death of a parent, no one could pay us enough to go back. These experiences can show us better who God is and cause us to love him more, or sometimes they shake our faith and cause us to doubt his care. Birth and...

As a young mother, someone gave me a copy of one of Joshua Becker's books, and it totally turned my world right side up. We were living in the decade where everyone was talking about minimalism and essentialism. I had thrown myself wholeheartedly into the movement, but something seemed not quite complete until I read "The More of Less." Suddenly, it all made sense. I wasn't throw...

Something I think that is important to do as we wrap up the school year and head into the summer is to assess our why. It doesn’t matter whether your kid is homeschooled, public-schooled, or private-schooled; summer is a big vibe shift. Even people who have a more traditional ebbs and flows to life sense a change in rhythms as summer approaches. I’m going to talk to former public school principal...

Maybe you love mornings, maybe you hate them, but we can't deny that the way we start them affects the rest of our day. It's so well known that there's a saying, "Well, she got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." So today, Jennifer Dukes Lee and I are going to chat about what it looks like to love your morning! Jennifer is an author and editor for Bethany House Pub...

I don't know about you, but I grew up with the 90s plastic set of armor that had each piece labeled with the "Armor of God" label. I would put on our breastplate of righteousness before heading out to play. I can't remember who, but I do have this memory of someone getting their head stuck in the helmet of salvation. Sometimes, when we've gamified a part of the Bible like tha...

My nickname as a kid was “muppy.” I know, I know what an oddname for a child… but it’s because I screamed in the face of anyone who would try to help me, “Muppy Do it!!” translation ”Let me do it.” How often do we as adults try to go through life with that same attitude? God wants us to find rest in him, and we want to do it all. Author and Bible Teacher Joanna Kimbrel is going to talk to us today...

If you've listened for a while, you'll probably have gathered I have 3 sons. Because of that, raising Godly sons is a topic near and dear to my heart. I want to say from the top: just because I talk about something I'm working through with my sons doesn't mean I don't think you've experienced it with your daughter. I only come from the reference point of having sons. That b...

I know some girls were super excited to transform from little girl into woman, but I was one of the many who was not excited by that prospect at all. I loved climbing trees and riding my horse. Everything that came along with being a "lady" felt like it would get in the way. This was made significantly harder because I was constantly told how men were uniquely made in God's image, bu...

Last week, Greta and I talked about the way that culturearound smart devices for kids has changed a lot in the last 10 years. At this point, most people are seeing the effect. We talked about screen time use. When is screen time helpful for kids? When is it hurtful? How do we have healthy limits without losing what’s most important? Greta is going to tell us more about a family culture surrounding...

I have several friends who are teachers, and it's amazing how drastically things have changed in the last 10 years. When my oldest was tiny, there were a few friends who could afford to have an iPad for their kid, but generally, they were like computers. For adults, but occasionally, kids had them. It was still surprising to see kids on an iPad at restaurants. Now, even young kids have their o...

I put a lot of time into preparing our hearts for Christmas, but often I just let Easter sneak up on me. If I'm honest, I don't really know how to go from the twinkle lights of Christmas into the darkness of winter, and think ahead to spring and the celebration of resurrection. I get a little closer every year, but culturally, we aren't given a template for what this looks like, so it...

I have to start this interview with a confession. The other day, I was scrolling social media and saw the cutest pair of gingham socks. They had that little ruffled top. I went from not knowing I needed ruffle gingham socks to clicking "add to cart" faster than you can say "Bob's your uncle." Before you start shutting down my inbox with emails asking for the link to the soc...

When I told my husband the topic of our interview today, he asked, "What does that have to do with the gospel and discipleship?" As humans, most of our discipleship takes place where our feet are planted. For him, usually that's his workplace, but for me, that's my home. I want to be humble enough to invite people into my mess, but within limits. If people can't get into the...

Before I had kids, I thought that to get them to "turn out right," I needed to be the perfect example of what a good mom and Christian looks like. I'm not sure about you, but that plan didn't last very long. Sleepless nights, changing hormones, and illness made motherhood feel more like a crucible than a Mary Cassatt painting. Abbey Wedgeworth has helped me create three of Sunshi...

We are well into the Christmas season. Maybe for you it's felt like pure joy, or maybe you've been thrown some curveballs. Walking through cancer to remission, Heidi Lee Anderson knows all about curve balls and what it looks like to walk into hard spaces with hope and also a good laugh. Even when the gifts we wish we could give back just keep giving.  From what I understand, life threw you...

I have decided to run a couple of Christmas specials this year with a couple of artists you already love. These episodes will be more light-hearted in tone, but hopefully still encouraging as you head into this meaningful season of celebration! Today, we are going to chat with one of my favorite music artists, Caroline Cobb. She is also the author of the Advent devotional "Advent for Exiles.&...