So I've recently heard a new term being thrown around. It's nearly epidemic. Within the last four months, three of my friends have talked about booking or going on a "babymoon." Here's the purpose, according to the babymoon guide:

Looking for some pampering and relaxation before midnight feedings and sleep deprivation become the norm? A pre-baby vacation is the perfect answer!

These trips are also touted as a "last hurrah" for couples and "one last romantic getaway." But don't confuse this new "babymoon" with the traditional definition: "A babymoon is a period of time that parents spend bonding with a recently-born baby." Consider this a second honeymoon before your first child arrives.

Personally, I think it's a neat idea. I've heard many parents say that once they begin having children it's very difficult to get away — just the two of them. Also, with people getting married later, many are starting their families sooner after marriage. Several years ago, a friend of mine who married at 34 said she and her husband planned to take three or four honeymoons their first year before they started their family. I thought it was a fantastic idea (if you could afford it).

So what do you think of the babymoon? Are you planning one? Have you known someone who did?

What is the big deal about celebrating Jesus' birth?

This is the question Joe Cassara asks in his essay "A Weary World Rejoices." He writes:

As Christian holidays go, Easter makes sense. Sure, the bunnies and eggs date back to a fertility goddess and pagan worship of life, but the celebration of Jesus risen from the dead is the date the fight was won, not the day the fighter was born.

Birth, he points out, isn't exactly an accomplishment. So why the big celebration? The significance of Christ's birth was finally illuminated to Cassara through some painful personal circumstances. After his wife's two miscarriages, he felt broken, shunned by God and unwilling to try again. Then:

Fast forward one year. Exactly one year. July 10th, 2009. My wife gave birth to twins. Natural twins. Not that I bought, but that we made, together. And so now I get it, I understand how a birth can be redemptive. How a birth from two broken people can heal pain, can turn many teary eyes toward God. I can be arrogant, but I'm not arrogant in this. What we wanted so badly, what we needed to heal us, came in the form of two babies. Hear me … we didn’t need babies to heal us, we needed to know that our God was trustworthy. I wonder why God wrote the rules in a way that two people need to get together in order to pop out a baby. He could have just made it so people crawl out of ocean at 11 years old, self-sufficient, no relationship between parents and children. But He didn't...

And so on Christmas, the day we've chosen to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I understand this year for the first time why a birth can be celebrated; why the farmers and prophets and businessmen back when Jesus was born were brought to their knees on his birthday. They were broken, run down and in real need of redemption that had been promised for thousands of years. And so Jesus’ birth was much more than the start of something ... it was the end of a long line of waiting.

Christ's birth was an answer to our need. His birth initiated the physical hope for salvation that ancient believers had been waiting for — and the hope we desperately need today. If you're broken, run down and in need of redemption this year ... rejoice! The Savior has come!

I've never been much for conferences. So much sitting and listening; and when you're not sitting and listening, mingling with a very large group of strangers. In the past I've tended to arrive late and leave early. But this past Saturday was different.

Steve and I headed to Focus on the Family to watch the Parenting simulcast. (Ted Slater was there too with his camera around his neck. Hence the photo.) It was exciting to be at the live site, especially knowing there were thousands of couples participating at 250+ satellite locations around the US, Canada and places farther away. It was fun to meet Elisa Morgan; chat it up with Matthew West, Phil Vischer and Ron Luce; brainstorm with Mark Holmen and be inspired by Larry Fowler. And Kevin Leman? Well let's just say I was laughing so loud that the people around me were looking at me funny.

But the best part of this stay-till-the-end conference was the fact that Steve and I were there, listening and learning, together. We were newly encouraged to give our all to our shared mission of parenting. And even better, everything about the day is now part of our common experience and language. As we face the daily highs and lows of raising kids, we have a wealth of new insights and resources and ideas we can mine together. It's like Solomon said,

"Two are better than one,
      because they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down,
      his friend can help him up.
      But pity the man who falls
      and has no one to help him up!" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

And in the shared responsibility of bringing up the next generation, that's a powerful truth.

When you hear that term, what comes to mind?

A couple of days ago I was flipping through some old copies of my grad school alumni magazine. They featured current and former students who'd done well, who had gone on to write books, make waves in government, take on pastorates, receive teaching awards, produce prize-winning films, head up inner city missions, and so on.

And that was just the women.

The message is that "successful women," those whom we should honor for their leadership skills, are those who influence people on a large scale. The more people affected by the alumna, the more successful.

But what about those women who went on to influence a small group of people, and more deeply? What about those women who, with master's degrees in hand, chose to forgo acclaim and take on the humble responsibility of being mere mothers? Who exchanged the temporal significance of a sterile board room for the eternal significance of the family room?

It's enough that my alumni magazine promotes women pastors, a vocation with no biblical precedence. But by remaining silent about the influential role of full-time mother, they imply that such women may not be counted among the "successful."

I know it's a cliche, but perhaps it is so because it's so true: In their last moments, women will likely not regret having spent so few hours working for The Man. They'll regret not having spent as much time as they could with the ones they love. In the case of married women, that's likely to include their children.

It's fine to recognize the success of women outside the home. Let's also recognize the too-overlooked success of those who, as the saying goes, rock the cradle.

Has the economic crisis given you pause about how you steward time and money? Has it given you a new appreciation for what you have that has (to your surprise) replaced the desire for more? Russell D. Moore hopes so. Because love of money is what he believes is "one of the roots of the familial crisis all around us."

In his Touchstone article "Love, Sex & Mammon," Dr. Moore hopes the economic crisis will cause the church to reconsider her priorities. He writes,

Too many of our churches, too many of us, have made peace with the sexual revolution and the familial chaos left in its wake precisely because we made peace, long before, with the love of money. We wish to live with the same standard of living as the culture around us (there is no sin in that), but we are willing to get there by any means necessary.

These "means" include Christians driving their teenage daughters to the nearest city to get an abortion so they can have a "normal" life, pastors preaching against the sin of homosexuality but ignoring divorce for fear of losing members and their tithes, and the way we blather on about marital communication but never consider whether day care is good for children. Regarding this last means, Dr. Moore concludes,

It's because pastors know that couples would reply that they could never afford to live on the provision of the husband alone. And they're almost always right -- if living means living in neighborhoods in which they now live with the technologies they now have. Why do we never ask whether it might be better to live in a one-bedroom apartment or a trailer park than to outsource the rearing of one's children? It's because the American way of life seems so normal to us that such things do not even seem to be options at all.

Nobody knows what's going to happen with the economy. And I don't know of anyone who hopes we'll go into a depression so the church will "turn away from momentary satisfaction." But economic adjustments can be healthy when combined with a dose of self-examination. It has certainly changed my perspective. Has it affected yours?