When Joanna was in fifth grade, her teacher passed out a pamphlet to everyone in the class. On that pamphlet were all kinds of topics about puberty and sex, and it had a phone number that you could call to listen to pre-recorded information on every subject. In all honesty, there were lots of terms and phrases on that pamphlet that she had never he…

As our children grow up, they may start to handle some things themselves. This could be chores, getting up on time, or saving up their allowance or earned money whenever they want a new toy. This is a natural part of getting older, but as a parent, it can be difficult to navigate when to step in and when is it healthy to let your child fail. There …

A number of years ago during one of our Michigan winters, our kids had a snow day off of school. What should have been a fun memory for our daughter became really scary since she suffered a sledding accident that put her in the hospital. She went through surgery and weeks at home in a wheelchair. To make matters worse, when she finally returned to …

This is an exciting podcast for us since it’s our 100th episode! Wow! We are so grateful for every one of our guests who have joined us to encourage us in our faith and in loving our family well. We are also truly grateful for all of you who have tuned in, listened, and supported the ministry of the Growing Home Together podcast. We have the honor …

In this stage of life with our middle schooler, it is pretty clear what our job description is as his parents. He needs us to provide clean clothes, food in the fridge, some help with his homework, drive him everywhere, and pay for his schooling and extracurriculars. We are his biggest cheerleaders and guides as he is doing this work of growing up.…

If we could use one word to describe Christian parents right now it would probably be “overwhelmed.” Parents feel overwhelmed by their busy schedules, concern of how culture will influence their kids, insecurity in their own ability to teach their kids about Jesus, or even the pressure to get everything right. Our guest is bringing a word of encour…

We got married when we were pretty young after we met at Bible college. Needless to say, we had a lot of lofty ideas about what our Christian marriage would look like. We thought we would never argue, never lose our temper, keep the romance alive all the time, and always put each other first. While we meant every word of our vows and we have stayed…

When I (Joanna) was in middle school, I can remember having a love of learning, I enjoyed being outdoors and moving through childhood content with who I was. It wasn’t until I moved to a new school and got my hands on my first Seventeen Magazine that it seemed like I was overwhelmed with feelings of not being enough. I felt like I wasn’t pretty eno…

“A mom is only as happy as her unhappiest child.” Have you seen this quote floating around social media? It’s caught our eyes more than a few times. I think for a lot of us as parents, this phrase can feel accurate because when our child is hurting or struggling, it becomes the main focus of our lives. Our emotions can get all tangled up in their a…

Does your calendar have nearly every square filled to the brim? For most families, May is a particularly busy time of year with graduation parties, school concerts, sports, final exams, and all the things that go along with wrapping up the school year. Even with such a busy schedule, we can get to the end of a packed-out day and still feel like we …

When we got married over 30 years ago, we learned right away that growing a strong relationship would be a never-ending process. In our years together, we keep blending our personalities, habits, and the good and bad in our backgrounds so that we can love each other well and accomplish the oneness that God designed for marriage. For couples who mar…

This week on the podcast, we're revisiting an excellent conversation originally shared in 2021. Anxiety remains a challenge for many children and families (including ours). While you’ll hear references to COVID-19 in this episode (as this was recorded in the height of shutdowns), the practical tips for anxiety are well worth revisiting so we can be…

Adopting our youngest son through the foster care system ten years ago was truly one of life’s greatest gifts. But one thing we didn’t fully understand as we looked forward to a bright future with our beloved little boy was just how much trauma a child suffers when they’re separated from their birth parents. Like many foster and adoptive parents, w…

There’s a common misconception that it's always the big things—like dishonesty or infidelity—that cause marriages to fall apart. But the truth is, many marriages experience death by a thousand cuts as small areas of misalignment add up over time. Every marriage has its squabbles, clashes, and little flare-ups of friction. Over our more than 30 year…

We all have wish lists in life—wishes for bigger houses, more quality time with our spouses, or even just a simple wish for better weather. While there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, we find our spirits dragging when we grow too preoccupied with the parts of life we wish would change. When this mindset takes over, it can prevent us from finding joy…

Raising our two sons has been one of the most rewarding journeys of our lives. If you have boys of your own, you know that parenting sons comes with its own unique set of blessings and challenges. One skill we strive to help our sons build is the ability to overcome the lies they encounter in life. We want to help them better understand what’s true…

Our son entered middle school this year and he is growing in all sorts of new and fun ways! He outgrew his shoe size, his appetite is bigger, he’s grown a wider circle of friends, and he’s definitely sleeping longer and longer hours. Along with that growth, his desire and appetite for screen time is growing bigger too! Honestly, navigating our son’…

The goal of our ministry has always been to help you care for the soul of your family and help you nourish relationships that keep God at the center of your home. We know that many couples desire the closeness and encouragement of sharing their faith with their husband or wife. Instead, they feel a painful sense of disappointment when their spouse …

Before you got married and into the first year of marriage, you probably spent hours dreaming about what your life would look like together. But today those dreams may feel far out of reach. Your marriage may have settled into a predictable routine that seems impossible to get out of. You may even feel like you're stuck in a rut and have lost your …

I take you to be my wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. Whether it’s been one year, ten years, or 25 years since you uttered those vows, we can all agree that they have and will be tested! We all exper…

Words are powerful! They have the potential to tear down our relationships or build them up. Ever since I (Joanna) was a young girl, I loved words. I would spend hours writing stories and poems. When I went to college, it just made sense to pursue a major in communications. Even though I took numerous writing and even a public speaking class, I was…

From the time we had the first of our five children, some of our most special moments were snuggling up to read books together. And some of those stories became like familiar old friends as we read them over and over until the kids could probably recite them by heart. We found so many gifts in reading together with our kids – the quality time, our …

We got married young and it felt like we were launching out of a starting gate with other couples we knew who got married around the same time. As the years have gone by, one of the hardest things to hear is when one of the couples we care about has fallen to sexual sin and some have even chosen to get a divorce. It’s a sad reality that many marria…

Many of us have the perception that prayer is a one-size-fits-all aspect of our faith with God. We may think that we are getting it wrong or failing that aspect of our Christian life. We believe that prayer is a deeply personal practice. It is an essential way to invite God’s power and wisdom into our lives, marriages, and relationships with our ki…

Most couples have encountered situations where they feel stuck. Maybe there’s a recurring area of conflict. Or a pain from the past that keeps showing up in the present. Maybe you wish your spouse would utilize your love language more, or that the two of you would be more unified in your parenting. No matter the area of your marriage that feels stu…

We are keeping it real today! You’ve likely heard us say that we are committed to quality time as a couple. Even when our kids were small, once a month we would scrape together whatever money we had left in our budget to pay a sitter to make sure we got quality time together. Date night has always been a big deal for us, but lately these last month…

Did you know that we’ve been parents for over 30 years? We can still remember holding each of our children as newborns and feeling overwhelmed by our love for them. But we also had many fears about raising our children in a world that is so broken and full of dangers. While we knew we couldn’t change the world, we did have hope that our children wo…

I have to be honest with you. This month is just giving me all the excuses to lay awake at night and worry about my kids. I have one that is headed into middle school and it’s just so easy to spiral into worrying about his friend group, how he is going to manage academically, and what kinds of influences might drag him down this year. Not to mentio…

Recently, I (Joanna) have been meditating on the story of Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12. In the story, Abram becomes afraid that someone will murder him because his wife, Sarai, is so beautiful. It can seem like a pretty crazy story. But it shows how we can look at our spouse's assets and view them not as gifts, but liabilities. In this episode, Ro…

Next month, our family remembers one of the most important anniversaries of our life together–the adoption day of our youngest son. We view this day as a blessing and a celebration, but for our son, that day holds a whole mix of feelings. While he loves us and is securely knit in the love of our family, his story holds confusion and loss that are a…

You may have heard of decision fatigue where you just have so many choices to make it can kind of be exhausting. Well, our family has been going through transition fatigue. We have had so many transitions both as a family and as individuals over the last year and a half. These transitions have been everything from switching jobs, moving to a new ho…

We have five children and in recent months they have been asking some significant questions about their money and their future. Everything from how health insurance will handle a pregnancy, how to find a good job and a reasonable apartment, and how to sell old video games to finance purchasing a new game. Each of our kids is at a different age and …

Even before we were married, we dreamed about becoming parents. We’re so grateful to God that today we have two wonderful sons and three beautiful daughters. While parenting truly is incredible, it is not easy! For Rob, if he had to pick one of the hardest parts of parenting, it’s when our kids break down and cry. As a dad that just breaks his hear…

It’s a very common story. You have an idea of how life will be with your spouse. You probably imagined a picture-perfect idea of a marriage with no conflict where you would just click together. But then once you start living with them day in and day out, it is all too easy to get hung up on their flaws and notice all the ways you are different from…

Recently, I was talking to a good friend of mine who has an older teenager. We talked about the struggle we feel as parents to help our kids hold onto their faith while they have the world’s voice in their ears all the time. Like so many parents, she has watched her child turn from the truth of God to believe the lies of the world. How can we help …

While we love each other very much, marriage is not always easy. Joanna and I are in this for the long haul, but it isn’t easy for two imperfect people to stay close, connected, and happy for a lifetime. Maybe you are feeling this struggle in your marriage today. Your spouse's habits are making you crazy, or you may not be feeling cared for, or you…

Fifteen years ago, our lives were filled with stress and busyness. While I thought I was doing everything right to work FOR my family by homeschooling during the day and working at night, I didn’t see that my relationship with my husband and my kids was struggling. Have you ever felt that way? We can get so wrapped up in doing and being productive …

In our previous episode, we discussed how to prepare ourselves to launch our children into adulthood. Continuing on this theme, this episode focuses on parenting young adults, which is particularly important to Rob and me since it's a topic that's close to our hearts. We delve into the heartache that comes with parenting a wayward child and aim to …

In this episode, we are going to discuss a stage of parenting that isn’t talked about as much. It’s what is known as the “messy middle” of parenting, where your kids are preparing to leave the nest for good. The questions and situations you have to deal with as your children start to assert their independence can be quite challenging. We are excite…

We know many couples who have split up or who are seriously questioning their future together, and the one thing that is crystal clear with all of them is that their relationship did not break down overnight. You may be wondering where your marriage will stand in 2023 or if you can overcome the hurts and conflicts that have happened in your marriag…

For the majority of our marriage, we had a traditional schedule where Rob would head off to an office job in the morning while I would stay at home with the children. But a few years ago, we flipped our lives upside down to pursue self-employment together as partners. This transition made us realize that we had a lot to learn, not just as marriage …

Every married couple will face challenges throughout their marriage. It could be dealing with a serious health crisis, mental illness, parenting prodigal children, infertility, financial setbacks, or overwhelming work and responsibilities. From the day a couple says “I do,” they set out on a journey that holds inevitable struggles and threats to a …

If you're married, you likely stood up at the altar on your wedding day and made vows to stick together for better and for worse, in sickness and in health. And maybe, like many couples, your vows have been tested because of an injury, illness, or chronic condition affecting your daily life. The challenge of chronic pain puts a unique kind of stres…

Do you ever feel disappointed or discouraged in your marriage? As wives, I (Joanna) know we want to know how to bring life to our marriages when we’re losing hope. I know so many women, despite their love for their husbands, feel discouraged in their marriages. Their husbands may seem distant and like he doesn’t want to work on a close relationship…

This episode was recorded in the midst of a crazy season of our life. From moving homes to health issues to the back-to-school season and much more, it was quite stressful. During seasons like that, it’s no secret that the marriage relationship can get a little tense. That season of life provided the perfect context for us to have this conversation…

Rob and I have four biological children, and eight years ago our family grew again through adoption. We are so grateful that God gave us the best gift in the courtroom that day, but we also had no idea what the journey ahead would hold. When we read Brittany Salmon’s book, It Takes More Than Love, we felt seen and understood. Today, we’re welcoming…

Sometimes, when we are on the journey of parenting, it’s easy to forget that we are also children. Not just to our earthly parents, but to our Heavenly Father. As we consider what it means to be a parent, it’s foundational to first consider what it means to be a child of God. That’s exactly what we’re doing on today’s episode with Christina Fox, a …

Have you ever noticed that you struggle for control? Maybe you just care a little extra about how your spouse loads the dishwasher. Maybe you struggle a little more to recover when life goes a different way than you were planning. Maybe you have trouble letting your kids make mistakes. Or maybe your marriage feels like a battle for leadership more …

We imagine, like us, you desire to leave a spiritual legacy for your family and see your children making their faith their own. But it can be so tough to navigate how to do that well, all while releasing control and trusting God. Today, we have the opportunity to welcome our guest Ray Pritchard, president of Keep Believing Ministries. Ray has writt…

To read the show notes for this episode, please click here: https://bit.ly/3dluCLGLifeAudio