encouragement for every season of life
I first met Kristen Welch in 2011 when we roomed together at a retreat in South Carolina. (I still find it crazy that these are the days of meeting people on the internet before meeting them in real life.) I liked Kristen right off the bat–she was warm, welcoming, and hilarious. As a bonus, she also spelled her name the…
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During my son’s senior year of high school, he and a few of his friends had a rather telling conversation with their choir teacher, one my son later relayed to me. In the course of their chat after class, someone asked this teacher – who is young, smart, and beloved by students and parents alike – what she thought was…
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It’s our sons’ last couple days of Christmas vacation, and we are spending them in the mountain towns of Keystone and nearby Dillon, Colorado. The drive to Keystone should only take two and a half hours, but three accidents and a white-out snowstorm along I-70 dictate otherwise. After no small amount of travel drama, we finally make it into town,…
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Before the USAF moved our family to the Rocky Mountain town of Colorado Springs, we were stationed in the tropical islands of Hawaii. I still remember landing at the small island airport for the first time, walking hand-in-hand with my four-year-old daughter towards baggage claim. I was exhausted after the long flight and terribly nervous about finding my place and…
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A couple months ago, I made my way north to Ft. Collins, CO, home of Colorado State University. My twin sons, both excited and nervous to be driving toward their freshman year of college, followed behind me in their granddad’s 2003 silver Honda. We arrived alongside a sea of other wide-eyed kids and teary-eyed parents and spent the whole day…
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This is a post based on an instagram story I gave concerning unfollows on social media. If you’d like to watch this porch chat on instagram, just visit the saved stories on my Instagram profile page and tap the circle titled “unfollows.” Watch other #porchchatswithkristen on instagram, too. So, I did something recently against my better judgement. There is this…
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There’s a particular Starbucks I frequent, one that sits across the street from the courts where my daughter, Faith, has tennis practice. While Faith works on her tennis game, you can often find me working on my writing game at one of their outdoor tables under an umbrella. I’m there a lot this summer. One day, after ordering my typical…
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UPDATE: The preorder bonuses are no longer available because Back Roads to Belonging is here! Purchase your own copy everywhere books are sold! As I may have mentioned once or twice recently (heh), I wrote a book about exploring the back road way to belonging: remaining in Christ and relaxing in the places God has you today. It’s called Back…
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UPDATE: *The application process is now closed. Thanks so much to all who applied!* If you were to poll my family members or friends I’m blessed to hang out with in my day-to-day life, they’d tell you I’m the type of person that has a hard time making a decision or jumping into something new all by my lonesome. Doing…
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Here it is, mid-May, and I’m going back and forth between reading news on Meghan and Harry’s baby boy and remembering this time last year when two of my three kiddos graduated high school. Planning a graduation is in many ways like planning a wedding. Out of town guests? Check. Cake and a party? Check. Lots of bittersweet tears because…
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Last week, a friend and I talked over our foamy hot beverages about how we both struggle asking for help, about how the #1 worst, Most Dreaded Thing for both of us is being a burden to someone else. It’s a familiar song for military wives (she is one, I was one), and the enneagram 2 in me only picks…
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Oh yes, I know this familiar territory of struggling to find my place and my people–maybe you do, too? It’s coming up on the one-year anniversary of my daddy’s homegoing to heaven, so lately I’ve been thinking a lot about him. An avid storyteller, many stories he told my sisters and I began with his characteristic, “When I was a…
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