Tim and Olive's Blog

Once in a while, while chatting with friends with school-aged kids, the topic of allowance comes up. “How do you guys do it?” we’re asked. We aren’t financial gurus by any means but we do have a little system in place that will hopefully instill some basic financial sense in our children.

Our system is based partly on how Tim’s dad (former accountant) taught Tim, and partly on a short, practical book called, Money-Smart Kids: Teach Your Children Financial Confidence and Control (affiliate link). Each family needs to tailor the way they approach the subject to their context, but today we’ll share what we do. Hopefully it can give you a starting point.

Hello dear readers,
Spring is a season where change often happens and Tim and I have two developments we wanted to let you in on. This post will be more of a personal update from us and less of the reflective type of article we usually post.

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Below is the text for the eulogy given at my dad’s Celebration of Life on March 24, 2019. To watch a video recording of the event, click here.

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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.

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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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