Brenda blogs weekly on life, faith, and parenting beyond the storybook image here at Life Beyond the Picket Fence Blog and podcast. Don’t miss a message. Join her and the not-so-perfect community by subscribing at Life Beyond the Picket Fence.
Timeless Advice for Raising Grateful Kids
Learn timeless methods for raising grateful kids through the power of gratitude, contentment and appreciation.
Gen X, We Need You
As AI and screens overtake natural processes, the world needs Gen X to model the skills and values that humans still need. Now is our time.
5 Ways to Create Contentment in 2024
Focusing on small, consistent actions can cultivate contentment, peace, and fulfillment this year. Let’s learn five easy practices.
Lord, Heal Me
Read how a simple prayer, “Lord heal me,” created powerful results.
Teaching Kids about Life and Death
We had newborn fainting goats born at Picket Fence Farm during the week of Thanksgiving. Baby goats are some of the cutest animals. They are not wobbly and scrawny like calves and are just the right size to be deemed adorable. It's not uncommon for goats to have...
Redeeming Fall and the Season of Tears
Fall can be a hard season. God surprised me with an encounter that turned grief into joy and redeemed a season I’d rather avoid.
Wrinkles as Your Wardrobe
There is wisdom in wrinkles. When I was in my mid-thirties, the first wrinkles appeared around my mouth. I noticed them more after waxing the hair above my lips, which were more visible because of the tan I pursued in the summer. How complicated it is to be beautiful,...
Preparing Your Child to Fledge
Whether you realize it or not, simple moments are really significant as you prepare your child to fledge to independence and prepare your heart for an emptying nest.
Caught Between Tired and Tears
Parenting in midlife is the best of times and the worst of times. You live between opposite extremes, often caught between tired and tears. Here’s what it’s like in the fledging season of life.
End of School Year Helps for Moms Episode 16
The end of the school year and start of summer means life is going to get crazy...CRAZIER!! Do you ever wonder how you're going to make it?? Parenting is a really hard job. Juggling multiple schedules, emotions, and everything else pull at you from all sides and leave...
When God Asks You to Dig a Ditch
God wants to meet our needs. He invites us to participate by digging ditches of prayer. Learn how to join God in a simple prayer practice.
How an Heirloom Quilt Stitched Me Together
Not without design does God make the music of our lives. John Ruskin Saver of Things On December 31, 2022, I finished up the last stitch on an heirloom quilt I've worked on since April 2020 during the pandemic shutdown. It is for our first grandchild. The heirloom...