Seems fitting to do our monthly gratitude chat on Memorial Day, and after this absolutely craziest month on record for our clan, I personally have so much to be grateful for. Let’s all remember the good things, big and little, that make our lives what they are.

As a reminder, here’s what w…

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Happy Maycember!

It’s 12 days until my daugher’s wedding, 19 days until my oldest son’s graduation, and just for good mesasure I’ll go ahead and toss in 38 days until my youngest turns 16, putting me officially into a WHOLE NEW STAGE of parenting. It’s crunch time. 💪

...Which means it probably won…

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Hard to believe, but it’s already the end of another month! Which means it’s time for us to remember the good things, big or little, in our lives. Let’s roll up our sleeves and do this thing!

You know what to do: in the comments, share ten things you’re currently grateful for, big or smal…

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Happy Eastertide! I hope you had a lovely day of reflecting on Christus Victor.

Here’s your friendly reminder to keep on feasting, because Easter is a full fifty days... It feels good to be in a season of feasting after the long Lenten season, doesn’t it? Phew.

Our family had a fantastically full Holy Week, but it was also one of our best. …I’m grateful for the liturgical calendar and how it meets us just where we need to be.

Let’s talk spring reading, shall we? It’s a good season for reading, but it’s also one of the busiest times in family calendars, so for me, cracking open a book feels like both a luxury yet also a necessity. Giving myself permission to sit and read, even for fifteen minutes, is often just what’s needed to tether me to something more than my to-do list.

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It’s hard to believe it’s already the last week of March... Sometimes beginnings of the year start slow for me, but not 2026 so far—this first quarter has absolutely whooshed by.

I love that the last week of the month coincides with the start of Holy Week, so instead of simmering in my in…

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I first wrote the following essay in the second half of the website’s life, but like most of the topics I wrote about there, its idea had long been taking root in my mind for years, slowly growing from a seed to a spout to a full-bloom leafy plant. Five-plus years later, I’m relieved to say that not only do I still agree with my original ruminations, but I’m on the other side of my need as witness to how well God meets heartfelt desires like this.

As with all my essays I plan to republish, I’ve edited it for clarity (because I’m a better writer now, thank goodness) and content (because some of my ideas have deepened or even changed with earned wisdom, also thank goodness).

Enjoy.

The topic of friendship has been a common one around our house lately. We have several kids who’ve shared a desire for more—or for more like-minded—friends, and after taking off my mom hat when the kids are in bed, I pour myself a drink and confide the same thing to Kyle.

I, too, would like to have more like-minded friends. It’s a weird thing, to be a full-grown adult and confess that it’s hard to make friends. It conjures up playground emotions of vulnerability and awkwardness because it puts you in a position of need, which feels uncomfortable.

Being on the receiving end of years of emails and private messages from readers: a lot of us feel this way.

Some of you who’ve written me are in your teens and have confessed a desire to find friends who share a kindred-spirited value of people over things, quality over quantity, meaning over status.

Some of you are in your twenties, doing the career-building thing and feeling alone, or doing the young parent thing and likewise feeling alone, and overall feeling alone as you navigate some pretty big waters.

Some of you are in your thirties and forties, like me, realizing how isolating our roles can be, whether they be breadwinner or stay-at-home parent or something in-between, longing for more local support and camaraderie.

Some of you are older than me, walking ahead and confessing that it’s still hard as we get older to make friends.

Let’s just say it collectively: finding friends can be hard. But finding friends is also so very worth it.

Here’s what I’ve told my three children for years now1: partial solutions. It’s something my therapist in Thailand taught me years ago, it’s something I’ve also been writing about for years, and I say this phrase at least once a week at home.

Life is full of partial solutions—where there’s a way to get a need met, and it might not be the ideal way, but it’s a way that still works.

Partial solutions apply to almost every area of life, from decorating our home, to getting dressed in the morning, to carving out a career for ourselves, to making dinner, to electing a politician. We can’t do the absolute ideal thing, but we can do the good-enough. And of course this is the case with friendships, too.

When I espouse the idea of partial solutions to my kids, I’m telling this to myself, too, because it’s easy for me to build a wall in order to hold on too tightly to my ideals, because when it comes to friendship, I really would love to find more kindred spirits2, so I embrace my must-have list of qualities in a person in the name of holding on to my integrity.

I’d like my ideal friend to be uber-local to me (as in, lives in my neighborhood), an entrepreneurial breadwinner who gets the challenge of providing for her family both financially and maternally, a Christian—with the same theological convictions as me, please—and while we’re at it, it’d be great if she also currently lives in a fixer-upper renovation and deals with all those challenges therein. Oh, and a mom with kids the same ages as mine.

I’m unintentionally treating real human beings as caricatures of personhood instead of divinely-made souls walking through real life on earth, like me. Ridiculous, right? But when I’m feeling pouty and pitiful, I take a step back and realize that this is precisely what I’m doing: being ridiculous. (Another word for this is picky.)

Here’s what I’ve been telling my children, and therefore myself, too: Pray for and hope for close friendships. This is a good desire. But don’t be so idealistic that you’re blind to the opportunities for friendship right in front of you. The person in your life that you least expect might end up the answer to your prayer.

This looks like pursuing that person already in your life instead of waiting for someone who might not exist. It looks like looking out for who might need a friend more than you. It looks like taking the initiative to get together when you’d rather wait to be invited. It looks like keeping healthy boundaries when you feel particularly vulnerable about all this, not turning to social media for a facsimile of the real thing.

It looks like continually keeping your eyes peeled for someone who fits the bill, but it looks even more like keeping partial solutions at the forefront of your mind when you yearn for companionship. Maybe God’s already answering this prayer; you just need to recognize who it is He’s really bringing to you.

We can be each other’s kindred spirits in the most surprising ways; it doesn’t need to look how we think it should look. Very often, the path to finding a good kindred spirit is to simply reach out first to that one person you already have in mind. Ask her to coffee; ask him if he’d like to go on a walk during your lunch break. Go first and initiate, because even though it feels like you’re the only one who’d like a friend—you’re not.

Remember what the wise sage Winnie-the-Pooh once said: “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

Don’t ignore the friendship possibilities God has already put in your life in the name of waiting for that one perfect kindred spirit that may not exist. Embrace partial solutions, in this and in all of life this side of the veil.

Partial solutions is the best answer to the question of where and how to find deep, meaningful friendships.

By early next week, February 2026 will have officially been in the books (already! ...this month flew by), so let’s end this month well. I read this yesterday in my Lenten read, Fire & Light:

“Gratitude opens us up to the gifts of grace. Not that it makes God more generous (for he is fully…

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Hey all,

Happy February! Most Januarys eke by for me, but this one was quite the opposite. I cannot believe it’s already February. Today, for Candlemas, we are officially taking down our Chrismtas tree and keeping a plethora of candles lit around the house. We are also calling my mother to wish her a happy birthday, prepping for class tomorrow, and doing what we can to make a little progress on book edits. We1 have a busy day today.

Let’s talk books, shall we? Share what you read in January, what you’re now reading for February, and generally what’s in your TBR stack. I’ll share mine below in the comments thread, as always.

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I didn’t realize until this morning that it’s been a couple months since we’ve done a gratitude check-in around here! So let’s start off 2026 right. I also can’t believe it’s already the end of January… Whoosh, indeed, as always.

In the comments thread here, share ten things you’re current…

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Hey all,

Happy new year! Let’s kick off 2026 with that most beloved of topics: books and reading. Have any plans for the first bit of the year?

I have a few favorites I like to read at least once a year—all short, all kick-in-the-pants type—and while I don’t read them all annually without fail, I l…

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Hey all,

Happy second full day of Advent! This is my favorite season in the liturgical calendar, and I’m so glad it’s finally here.

It’s a good time to kick off our “new year” with some solid reading, so as always at the start of each month, let’s share what’s in our stacks. You know what to do: sha…

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Hey all,

November is one of my favorite months of the year, and I don’t know about you, but I’m already chomping at the bit for Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and all that they entail... Bring on the holidays, I say!

It’s also a really good time of the year for reading, so let’s share what’s in ou…

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It’s been ages since we’ve done this, thanks to my previous book deadline, but I miss this joint practice so let’s dust it off!

In the comments thread here, share ten things you’re currently grateful for, big or small. Then read a few other folks’ lists and find yourself encouraged. I alwa…

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Every honest Christian wishes they had some amazing story to tell about how they found Jesus. It is those folks whose stories we elevate with Very Special Evenings to hear their testimony, from drug-addled homelessness to on-fire evangelist; from staunchly argumentative atheist to viral apologist. That is not my story. My story of coming to know Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior is a cookie-cutter copy of millions of Americans roughly my age, plus or minus fifty years.

I grew up in a loving Christian home, complete with nightly family dinners after ballet class and suburban summertime bike rides with drinks from the water hose at the side yard. Now, a “Christian home” isn’t to say my earliest memories are of Wednesday evening tent revivals or post-sermon potlucks in the fellowship hall; mine are mostly the ordinary playing-in-the-backyard, watching Saved by the Bell on Saturday mornings variety, but nonetheless, they were all infused with a base-level assumption that in our household, we go to church and we call ourselves Christians.

I never sensed we were unusual in any particular way. Perhaps this is the Moral Majority-era raised Southerner in me, but my early immature perspective on life assumed everyone around me hailed from a family and home life that went to church on Sundays and found swear words and beer offensive. It wasn’t until fourth grade, when I’d join friends after school in their homes, that I discovered parents whose album collections included hair bands—men in actual tights and makeup and insane hair—and parents who actually swore in front of their children as though they were in a PG-13 movie. Living rooms that allowed a TV parked on MTV debuting the latest Billy Idol.

My parents weren’t strict the way some of my Reformed evangelical counterparts’ were: we had cable TV and junk food, and my latchkey kid status meant mainlining The Brady Bunch, Growing Pains, and The Facts of Life reruns after school until my mom walked through the front door (my brother, five years my junior, preferred Thundercats, He-Man, and Transformers by the time I had any real memory of my own pop culture oeuvre). I was allowed a radio in my bedroom, so I knew of Duran Duran and Pet Shop Boys and bragged as much out on the second-grade playground. I was jealous of friends whose parents, in the fourth grade, mind you, took them to see Prince and Bon Jovi live. My first concert wasn’t until the ripe old age of eleven in the sixth grade, when I saved up my own allowance money to see Debbie Gibson with my group of girlfriends, and yes, of course I wore a copy of her ubiquitous hat.

I conjure up these dated names only to timestamp my childhood, as well as to make clear that I did not grow up in a super-strict fundamentalist household. My mom routinely had to go on the defensive with certain extended family members as to why she allowed me to take dance classes that included, in addition to ballet, tap and jazz classes that performed on stage to the latest Top 40. We watched Ghostbusters on HBO and a few weeks later, my three-year-old brother mimicked an entirely inappropriate line from the film right in front of our grandparents.

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Hello!

My brain is both absolutely fried and more alive than it’s been in a long time. I feel like I’ve been in an echo chamber of my own thoughts, which isn’t a bad thing, actually, for a season. When I finish writing a book, I have to go into a cave and ignore as much as I can (save for feeding m…

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Dusting off the keyboard, pulling the cord on the dangling light bulb in my brain, reminding myself how to log on to Substack…

Hello! I’m back from my summer screen sabbath. And what a summer it’s been! I’ll share details, both professional and personal, in a few days when I write to everyone, but I first wanted to greet you fine folks, you paying subscribers of The Commonplace who make my work possible. I’m so grateful for you. 💛

As always, the summer has absolutely whooshed by. Every year I begin these seasonal sabbaths with an assumption I will get So Very Much Done, and every year I return from my break with a humble awareness that I needed a break far more than I realized, I didn’t get as much done as I assumed I would, and yet there is very little to do but shrug my shoulders, say “life goes on,” and re-enter the delightful fray with the renewed perspective that is my valuable prize.

Did I get book-writing done? Yes, absolutely. As much as I needed or wanted? Not by a long shot. Did I enjoy some precious family time? Yes, for which I’m beyond grateful. Did I have all the deep conversations I hoped I’d have with each of my kids, one-on-one? Of course not. Did I finish some house projects? One or two. Did I cross off that list entirely? Hah!

Such is life.

It’s the dog days of summer around here, hot and humid, wherein we praise the high heavens for swimming and the modern marvel of air conditioning. Heat or no heat, though, summer remains a beloved season of mine in spite of the weather, not because of it. I love summer because of its rhythms. As a teacher and co-op leader, I so appreciate the break from my brain being constantly on in school mode. As a mom of olders, I relish in letting my kids’ giant bodies get the sleep they need and the brief respite from me harping on their schoolwork.

And the trope remains true: we have 18 (ish1) summers with them. It goes by so fast, and I know crossing off my to-do list pales in comparison to quality time with them. My youngest has only three years until he graduates high school, and I know from experience with my olders that when it’s over it’ll have felt like nothing. I genuinely don’t feel old enough to be a near-empty nester, yet here we are. 👵

The sheer volume on my plate this week is laughable, and I need to make some headway on it, so this brief hello is short. You’ll get a longer update from me in a few days, so keep your eye out for it in your inbox — yet I wanted to leave you with two things…

1. My next book is official! 📚

This summer I formally signed a contract with my publisher — it’s the book I’ve been working on for months now, so this is less Brand New Information and more Now the World Knows. I’m stoked to work with Image Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House! Here’s a screenshot of their formal industry announcement:

I’ll share more details soon, but I wanted y’all to be the first to officially be in the loop!

2. A prayer 🙏

We can pray in all sorts of ways: in our minds, petitioning the Lord for our needs; using pre-written prayers given to us from saints throughout the centuries; as we read the Bible a la lectio divina, imaginatively, contemplatively, and beyond. Yet in the spirit of my summer and in the details I’ve shared here, there’s also a common form of prayer we often forget can be a legitimate form of prayer with the right posture: work.

Yep, our work can be a form of prayer. Brother Lawrence reminds us of this in his short classic, The Practice of the Presence of God2:

“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”3

With that in mind, I’ve written a prayer to dedicate my work each morning to the Lord, who gives me the very ability and gift of work itself. Perhaps it encourages you, too:

A Petition for Rolled-Up Sleeves

Lord God, you created me for Your own pleasure, and beyond my human comprehension, that pleasure miraculously includes my ability to work. You gave us work in the Garden, before our rebellion. Work itself is inherently good. Unlike all else in your creation, we humans are Your co-creators, invited to join You in the manifestation of Your glory, and like a child’s drawing, our feeble offerings are Your fatherly delight.

I am astonished.

Maker of all things: baptize today’s work so that a sliver of Your glory shines through the cracks and imperfections. Marry the muck of my drudgery with Your will. Redeem my motives. Sanctify my struggles. Honor my handiwork, feeble as it may be.

And tonight, as I turn off my light and rest once again, pour forth Your paternal kindness so that I may awake again the next morning, willing to say once more: Lord, baptize my work today.

Accept the gift of my rolled-up sleeves.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In the midst of all the rigamarole, I’m really glad to be back here. I hope you’ve had a just-right sort of summer you’ve needed, even if it perhaps wasn’t what you expected… I look forward to returning soon to our monthly grat chats, book chats, and more. Grateful, again, for each of you.

St. Frances de Sales, pray for us.

Peace,

Tsh

Hi all,

It’s the last day of June, which means it’s time to practice our gratitude habit. My favorite monthly Commonplace post!

As a reminder: In the comments, make a list of ten specific things you’re grateful for, big or small. Then, read a few other lists and find encouragement from what others see in their worlds around them.

I’ll share my June list in…

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Hey all,

We got in from Europe at midnight last night, and after a quick shower and crash into bed, I woke up this morning literally not knowing which country I was in. 🫠 I now have a mountain of laundry to wash, an empty fridge to fill, a week’s menu to plan, an insane email inbox to process igno…

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Hi all,

It’s already the end of May this week, which means it’s time, as always, for us to practice our gratitude! …Even if you don’t feel like it, saddle up and try this simple habit — you won’t regret it. It’s a subtle but significant mental shift in noticing all the tiny little things around us that truly are good.

You know what to do: In the comments,…

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Hey all,

Sorry this is getting posted later in the day than usual…. Tate is back home as of two days ago, and her BOYFRIEND is staying with us as well! 💛 So we have a full house with a (delightfully) upended routine. Needless to say, prayers are needed for getting anything done this week as we win…

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