My new memoir, A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny is out in stores now. I've been rereading it myself and revisiting many of the themes in the book. In the beginning of each chapter of the book, I share an excerpt from the journal I kept ...

I just read a post by the author Ian Brown, "The Absence of Normal Frees Us" about Brown and his son, Walker. Brown's book, The Boy in the Moon, describes their relationship in greater detail, but this essay alone is well worth reading, and perhaps a good place to start thinking ...

Last Friday, Family Life broadcast a conversation between Martha Manikas Foster and me about why Christians should consider sending their children to public schools, even "failing" public schools. It was based on a post I wrote for her.meneutics, the Christianity Today women's ...

A number of you have written me to ask, "Will A Good and Perfect Gift be available on Kindle?"

YES! Unfortunately, neither I nor my publisher has any control over when Amazon will make the book available on Kindle. I have been told that it usually takes two to three weeks. I ...

(Update: Alice Hodgkins has won this giveaway–much thanks to Alice and all the others who helped share the news about the book!)

I am thrilled to announce the official release of my new book, A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations and a Little Girl Named Penny (Bethany ...

A few nights back (in fact, in the midst of Hurricane Irene, an inauspicious choice) William said, "Mom, can you take my passy away?" (He still uses a pacifier to go to sleep, and if I were to let him walk around with it all day long, he'd carry it willingly.)

"Sure, William," ...

I've written here on a number of occasions about my hopes (and fears) for Penny when it comes to making friends. I try to arrange playdates. I talk to her teachers about her social skills. We practice "using her words" and looking people in the eye. We bemoan how often she just ...

Lots more information to come as the week progresses, including an excerpt and a video clip. But for today–you can order your copy of A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith Expectations and a Little Girl Named Penny. Please spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, through email and ...

Who knew that a tropical storm could do this much damage? So here I sit, by candlelight, eighteen hours after we lost power (I'm writing this at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday night, but I can't actually post it now because we don't have Internet capabilities at the moment), wondering ...

Siddharta Mukherjee wrote a column for the New York Times Magazine about his experience watching funeral pyres in India as a boy, his experience as an oncologist watching Americans die of cancer, and the problems with the American way of death. The contrast between a body ...

I've always assumed that if I ever wrote and published a book, I would then embark upon a cross-country book tour. Peter envisioned a Winnebago with the kids in the back, stopping in every major city from Boston to Seattle, down the West Coast, and back again. We've abandoned ...

In John 10:10, Jesus says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

It's easy to settle for a less-than-full life, whether by assuming that relationships will end in disappointment, or that God doesn't ...

Our daughter Penny was born five and a half years ago. She was our first child, and we found out two hours after she was born that she probably had an extra 21st chromosome. For us, the first twenty-four hours were the hardest, although it took me about a year to fully receive ...

I wrote last week about a disturbing article in The New York Times Magazine that related stories of women who chose to "reduce" their pregnancies from twins to singletons. From my vantage point, the article raises two sets of ethical questions–one surrounding the ethics of abortion ...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a review of Jenell Paris' book, The End of Sexuality. I talked about celibacy as an option for Christians who believe that they cannot engage in same-sex physical relationships. Some of you, with kindness and respect, expressed incredulity about celibacy. ...