The first month of the year always represents a season of new beginnings. Whether or not we actually make tracks through real snow, we feel refreshed and ready to face new challenges. Are you ready?

This month, author and speaker Liz Curtis Higgs leads the way for us. She’s the author of twenty-four books, with three million copies in print, including her nonfiction bestseller, Bad Girls of the Bible, and her fiction bestseller, Thorn in My Heart. An award-winning speaker, Liz… Read More

“Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is to small to be made into a burden.”
- Corrie ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook

When I was five, I worried about getting lost on the path between my kindergarten classroom and the school cafeteria. When I turned seven, I worried that my chatty reading partner would get me in trouble with our teacher. At nine, I fretted over my too-curly hair, or whether I’d finish my term paper on time. And at thirteen, I worried that my dad’s job might transfer him to Turkey.

Later… Read More

It is that time of year again! Time for making those New Year’s Resolutions! I recently read that two of the top resolutions people make include reducing stress and starting to enjoy life. Because I am a big believer in our homes facilitating the life we really want to live, I think it is a perfect time to evaluate how well our homes are meeting our needs. Changing our behavior, attitude and habits sometimes begins with changing our environment.

I think we are all yearning for a little more peace and a little… Read More

The New Year wears hope like a fragrance. The scent, tender, young, sweet, carries in on the wind, and carries me.

So I watch it come, this first day of the first month of a brand new year, breaking over the horizon, breaking up through our jaded hopelessness. Just on the rim of our clean farm fields of white, a new time, fresh hope, dawns.  Do these fields of unspoiled winter await new tracks, like an unfurled year awaiting new ways of being? Pristine and blue in morning light, this… Read More

Listen in as Jill chats with Lynn Bower Walker about her book, Queen of the Castle: 52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged or Just Plain Tired Homemaker. The book is full of funny tips, practical information and great homemaking ideas. Walker isn’t afraid to share her foibles which makes the book a fun read.

Lynn Bowen Walker is a Stanford graduate who was trained as a journalist, but who chose instead to dedicate herself to raising a family and building a strong… Read More

A soft whisper speaking to my soul. A gentle tug on my heart.  A beckoning to return to Him, to seek His truth and wisdom and guidance in all ways. A quiet reminder to turn all things over to Him–to let go and let God.

The past few years, my faith has been tested on many levels. There were times I wavered, or was overcome with anxiety and fear and doubt, or was consumed with exhaustion and anger, or isolated myself from others, because I didn’t have the energy to reciprocate or give anything… Read More

Candace, I want to ask if you have any thoughts about how to teach our little ones about Christ? I have 2 boys: ages 2 & 5. I try to teach them about God; we read Bible stories at bedtime and we pray and talk about God here and there.  Maybe it’s just a developmental thing, but my 5 year old seems so aloof. When he prays, he’s just repeating the words that he’s heard me pray, it doesn’t come from within himself. And when I try to teach him about God… Read More

At this time of year, we often pause to reflect on the past and speculate on the future. I was doing just that recently as I was pondering the theme for my entire Boomer Babes Rock outreach, a ministry that includes books, speaking, a web site, blog, and this CWO monthly column. I was thinking and praying about the coming year and in doing so I kept being drawn to the theme of Freedom.

I reviewed my past CWO columns and I found this paragraph that I’d written for the April 2007 CWO column:

“At a time in… Read More

With great interest I’ve been following your website and reading your advice column here.  As a young woman of the same age as you, and with a similar background in acting and upbringing, I’ve felt best able to relate to your story of seeking out a more truly Christian lifestyle and searching for greater meaning and discipline to my life.
 
I was just about ready to “make the leap” and seek out some of the resources you’d recommended, when I read something that made me doubt my ability to