Tim and Olive's Blog

Traditionally, the season of Lent is the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday (not including Sundays). It is a season for fasting and repentance, a season of soul-examination drawing from Jesus’ experience in the wilderness. This year, Lent starts on Wednesday, March 6 and lasts until Saturday, April 20.

Back in January, Tim and I did our annual Blue Day – a day to review our direction, plan, and dream for this coming year (we explain this idea more in our ebook “Fight With Me“). We also chose a theme word to focus on for the year. For 2019, our word is Enough.

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When I think about what we did as a family in 2018, two practices stand out in as particularly life-giving and beneficial to each of us. These were both spiritual exercises that we incorporated into our daily rhythms over this past year and were only possible because our kids are now at an age where they could both participate. The first was what we call Good Parts/Hard Parts. The second was what we call the Quiet Minute.
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Advent is a season observed by many Christians as a time of preparation and expectant waiting for the celebration of Jesus’ birth. The term comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming.” Many people like to go through a set of readings during Advent. For me, having one word to contemplate throughout the day and looking for an image to capture that word allows me to practice Advent in a simple, accessible, and integrated way that flows with the rhythms of my life.

The practice of capturing one photo a day throughout Advent has enabled me to live with eyes wide open, in both a physical and spiritual sense. In the midst of the hubbub of December, it has allowed me to slow down and be attentive to my life. It has been such a rich practice over the past few years that I wanted to continue it this Advent.
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Ten years of marriage feels like both a long and a short time. As we prepared to celebrate our first decade of marriage today, we sat down to reflect on some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it summarizes some of the main things we have learned.

We realize that our readers come from various places in life – some are married, some unmarried, some are struggling with their marriages, some are divorced or separated. Our intention for sharing is to give a glimpse into our relationship and hopefully bring encouragement or invite pondering. We recognize that the marriage we have can only be described as an unmerited gift – an act of grace in our lives. We are fortunate to have supportive family and friends around us and are grateful for their roles in shaping us as individuals so that we could have the marriage that we do.

Three years ago, we wrote 7 Things Learned in 7 Years of Marriage. This year, we’ve created a new list with 10 Things Learned in 10 Years of Marriage:
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On August 5, 2018, I (Olive) had the privilege of speaking at Heritage Mountain Community Church on the topic of “Embodied Faith: Meeting God in Our Bodies.” Below is the audio recording from that morning along with the written version of my message.

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Survival Guide for the Soul deepened my motivation to restart spiritual practices I’ve given up on and it gave me practical ideas on how to approach the practices differently. Ken’s book is filled with engaging stories and deep insights. I especially appreciated the variety of stories, from leaders in the past and present and “regular” people from Ken’s church community.

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Lent is the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday (not including Sundays). Traditionally, it is a season for fasting and repentance, a season of soul-examination drawing from Jesus’ experience in the wilderness. This year, Lent starts on Wednesday, February 14 and lasts until Saturday, March 31.

For the past two Lenten seasons, I have adopted the practice of reflecting on a word prompt and taking a photo as an expression of that day’s reflections (I have also done this for Advent, in preparation for Christmas). I began this practice at a time in my life when I felt like I was living in a wilderness and it felt more do-able and life-giving than abstaining from or giving up something. While this Lenten practice is not “giving up” anything per se, it does require intentional focus and going deeper – a setting aside of shallower thoughts and mindless ways. 40 days is a long period and usually by some point in the middle, I start feeling the “discipline” aspect. It’s very tempting to give up and let it slide. I welcome this as a reminder of my frailty and my need for God to sustain me through each day all the way until Easter.

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Every January, we set aside a day to assess where we’re at and plan for the year ahead. We call it our “Blue Day” (a more detailed description of it can be found in our free e-book, Fight With Me). We always begin our Blue Day with a bit of silence and solitude, out of which usually arises a word that becomes our theme for the year. For 2018, our word is WONDER.
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Advent is a season observed by many Christians as a time of preparation and expectant waiting for the celebration of Jesus’ birth. The term comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming.” For the last two years, every Advent season, I have followed a list of photo prompts to help me reflect and prepare for Christmas. Many people like to go through a set of readings during Advent but at this stage of life for me, it feels a bit daunting to find time to sit, read, and reflect every day. Having one word to contemplate throughout the day and looking for an image to capture that word allows me to practice Advent in a simple, accessible, and integrated way that flows with the rhythms of my life. This year, I am planning on also involving our daughters in this practice – something I’m really excited about.

The practice of taking one photo a day throughout Advent has enabled me to live with eyes wide open, in both a physical and spiritual sense. In the midst of the hubbub of December, it has allowed me to slow down and be attentive to my life. It has been such a rich practice that I wanted to continue it this Advent. I wasn’t able to find any list of prompts online this year so I created my own.

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