One of the highlights of my 2015 was the opportunity to spend an afternoon in Colorado Springs with Jim Daly, John Fuller, and Jim's lovely wife Jean recording a broadcast about parenting with grace.

“Lent is the season of repentance and remembrance leading up to Easter Sunday—a time to look long at our sin and look even longer at the cross of Christ.”  (By the way, if you haven't already, join "She Reads Truth" for their beautiful Lent Study!)

So what does Lent - this season of repentance and remembering- have to do with parenting?

“Patience is a grace as difficult as it is necessary, and as hard to come by as it is precious when it is gained.”

If there is any area of our lives that illuminates this quote by Charles Spurgeon, it’s parenting. We want to be, no, we desperately long to be patient and self-controlled, but how often does our anger win?

If there's anything moms have in common, it’s that we worry.

We worry about our kids. We worry for our kids. We worry we aren’t enough. We worry we aren’t doing enough. We worry we’re doing too much.

To kick off the holidays, I invited a group of families in our church to join us in stuffing stockings for the underprivileged children at Danita's Children Orphanage in Haiti.

What transpired blew me away!

“Santa is coming. Be good!” or “Christ has come. Be free!”

As we lead our children through this Advent season, might we pause to ask ourselves which message we want to communicate to them?

Happy Saturday, friends!  I've sent more emails than usual this week. I hope that's ok!  But as promised, I'm sharing the articles I'm writing elsewhere, and this one happened to be featured in the "Thankful Nation" series with FoxNews.com this weekend. I hope you enjoy it!

The human tendency is to look at everything we don’t have and demand “more” to be happy. When, ironically, happiness is not found in acquiring “more” but in being more thankful for what we’ve already been given.

It’s tempting to tether our identity to the choices our children make. Whether those choices be stellar ….. or stupid.

When my son goes out of his way to welcome a boy who was hesitant to attend youth group, and the mom of the boy graciously texts me to let me know what my son did, it’s easy for me to proudly think, “Nice work, Jeannie. You’ve taught your son about being thoughtful and kind, so clearly you’re a good mom.”