Jenn Kish

04/28/2026

We hear a lot of talk about the burdens of motherhood. I read article after article that state the same thing- that motherhood is heavy and demanding. And honestly, I think it is supposed to be that way.

Maybe it’s supposed to be hard, mama. Because if we could do it alone, we’d never find Jesus in the midst.

Motherhood is so many things. It’s draining AND fulfilling. It’s exhausting and exhilarating. It’s long days and short years. It’s wanting them to grow and stay little. It’s laundry and dishes. It’s blocks and dolls. It’s mismatched socks and wrong season tops. It’s messy. It’s beautiful.

Nothing in this life has challenged me like being a mother. When I had four children under the age of seven, every single day was lived in the spaces between naps and bedtime. There were days when getting out of bed was overwhelming because I knew the day was full of caring for everyone’s needs but my own.

And somewhere in the midst of all of that I found who Jesus intended for me to be.

I was meant to be mama. Mama in the hard. Mama in the easy. Mama in the happy. Mama in the sad. Mama to the babies. Mama to the teens.

There is a verse in scripture that says women will be saved through childbearing. Now obviously this is not the only way for a woman to come to know the Lord, but I do believe it can lead us to depend more fully on him. Because when the calling of a mother gets heavy, the only place to find true rest is in Jesus Christ.

If this is you today, I encourage you to lean into Jesus. Let him renew your strength and fill your cup. His well never runs dry.

Maybe it’s supposed to be hard, mama. Because if we could do it alone, we’d never find Jesus in the midst.

04/01/2026

The suffering of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

I often think about what it must have been like to be Mary. What would it be like to hold the Savior in your arms? What would it feel like to look into the eyes of the child who would ultimately rescue the world from death? What did his little voice sound like? Did he like to be rocked to sleep? Oh, to have held that baby!

The older I get, the more I realize that Mary’s calling to be the mother of Jesus was a calling to a life of suffering.

When the angel showed up in her home her life, the one she had planned, was turned upside down.

She had to tell Joseph she was pregnant, he assumed she had been unfaithful. Pain.

She was an u***d pregnant woman which bore great shame. Pain.

She carried and delivered a son whose life was threatened from birth. Pain.

She listened as people taunted and mocked her son. Pain.

She watched as soldiers tortured and beat him until he was unrecognizable. Pain.

She stood at the foot of the cross and stared up at the broken, lifeless body of her son. Pain.

Her son became her Savior in the same way that he became ours, but the pain she felt was different. It was the suffering of a mother.

So often we fall into the lie that Jesus wants us to be happy. We get caught up in the idea that if he truly loved us we wouldn’t go through difficult stuff. We begin to believe that if Jesus was really interested in us, he would spare us the pain. But Jesus does not say be happy, he says, be holy.

If we look at what his own mother suffered we would see that it’s NOT in his love that he SPARES us from pain. It’s IN his love that he PURSUES us through our pain.

The purpose of pain, in part, is to produce holiness. And when we seek to let the pains of this world draw us closer to the cross, we begin to look a little more like Jesus. We lay down our fruitless pursuit of happiness and at the foot of the cross we find joy.

Joy - even in the midst of suffering - so that we, like Mary, would be found faithful in life’s most painful moments.

📷: Jake Kish, age 10

03/31/2026

I love to reflect on the humanity of Jesus in these days leading up to Easter.

During the events of holy week we see him loving his friends and serving them through washing their feet.

We see him weep openly begging God for another way, shedding drops of blood as though they were tears.

We see him experience denial and betrayal by some of his closest friends.

We see him mocked, beaten and spit upon.

We see his body begin to break beneath the relentless torture.

We see his hands and feet nailed to a wooden cross.

We see him look down from that cross in the midst of his extreme suffering to ask his beloved friend John to take care of his mother, Mary.

We see the person of Jesus, his humanity on display, and in his broken and bloody body we can see his great love for us.

For John. For Mary. For you. For me.

The death and resurrection of Jesus gives us hope in our own human condition.

We can identify with a Jesus who weeps.

We can identify with a Jesus who has been betrayed.

We can identify with a Jesus who has experienced the depths of loss and of pain.

We can identify with his human experience.

His life tells a beautiful story of love, brokenness and hope.

Hope because although his body was beaten and broken, He now stands in the throne room of heaven completely whole.

And one day I’ll stand there with him, too.

02/24/2026

🥳🥳 My friend Susannah B. Lewis is starting a podcast!! I am so excited, make sure to check it out wherever you listen to podcasts.

02/20/2026

❤️

One truth I find myself forgetting far too easily is this: Jesus Christ was not only fully God; He was fully human.

When He was led into the wilderness, it wasn’t random. It wasn’t self-inflicted. It wasn’t for pride or performance. Scripture tells us He was led there by the Spirit.

That means the hunger was real.
The physical weakness was real.
The exhaustion of an empty body after forty days of fasting was real.

He understood what it feels like when your body is depleted, when your strength is gone, when your humanity is screaming for relief. He knew the very limits we so often use as justification.

And yet, He stood firm.

For years, the excuse that quietly lived in my heart sounded like this:
“Of course He resisted. He’s God.”

But that’s only half the truth.

He resisted as One who was also fully man, empowered by the Spirit of God. The same Spirit given to us as believers.

That changes everything.

It means our wilderness seasons are not places of defeat.
They are places of dependence.
They are where we learn that we are not fighting for victory, we are fighting from it.

We do not stand alone against temptation, discouragement, or weariness. We stand with the power of the Triune God at work within us. The Spirit strengthens. The Father sustains. The Son has already overcome.

So maybe it’s time we stop excusing what God has already equipped us to endure.

The wilderness is not proof that God has left you.
It is often proof that He is leading you.

Stand firm.

02/18/2026

Whew! Thank you, Jesus.

01/25/2026

He could see the Savior, yet he was still afraid of the soldiers. Peter, that is.

I imagine you can recall a time when fear convinced you to do something you hadn’t planned on doing. Such is the case with our dear friend, Peter, in the denial of Jesus. You’ve heard the story but today I want you to read through the passage.

Luke 22:54-62

Then they seized him (Jesus) and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. 56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly.

Now go back and read verse 61 and just sit on that for a moment. “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.”

Well, that stings a bit.

I can imagine Peter’s face becoming hot, maybe red. He wept openly and bitterly. He can not make sense of what has transpired. He is in the midst of the most uncertain time of his life and when questioned about the most important person in his life he denies knowing him. And while Jesus has tried to prepare him (and the others) for what is happening, one can never be fully prepared for this type of thing.

Now Peter was not a half-hearted follower of Christ. He had been a companion, walking away from his own plans to follow Jesus. In the same evening that Peter had drawn his sword to fight for Jesus he hid his face to deny him. This makes Peter so real to me, so human, so…me.

So me.

I will openly praise God for his provision and faithfulness while trusting in my own savings. And the Savior’s eyes meet mine.

I will sing of how I want him to draw me deeper into trusting and cry out when I feel out of control. And the Savior’s eyes meet mine.

I will teach about his miracles and seek out my own solutions. And the Savior’s eyes meet mine.

I will meditate on his words of faith, hope and security and worry about what tomorrow holds. And the Savior’s eyes meet mine.

I will read about his unfailing love and neglect his presence because I wonder how he could love someone like me. And the Savior’s eyes meet mine.

I am Peter.

And the Savior’s eyes meet mine.

I believe, Jesus. Help my unbelief. ❤

01/15/2026

For the record, and I’m no doctor, but no, a man can not get pregnant.

As a woman who has carried and delivered 6 precious children I take great offense to the blending of lines and blurring of differences between man and woman.

Women were created on purpose. God saw that man had no suitable helper. He put Adam to sleep and created someone for him. He did not create another man- not a buddy or a brother- who created someone different- a woman.

Woman was created with purpose. She wasn’t an afterthought, she was a planned creation who brought completion to God’s design.

And what is the world without woman? My husband says if it wasn’t for me he’d live in a house with brown walls and floors. He means that I bring the color to his world.

I’ve always loved that thought.

But what if women are not valued for our differences from men? What if our pursuit of sameness morphs us all into the identical beings.

And then there is the biology of it all. Excuse my desire to be very blunt here- I have been married for 21 years. Our marital activities have produced many pregnancies and somehow it was always me. My husband never once turned up pregnant.

So, no, men cannot become pregnant.

And my womanhood cannot be hijacked by the culture.

My identity rests in who God created me to be. It gives me purpose. It gives me direction. It brings color to a brown world.

And, I’m no doctor, but I’m certain that men cannot become pregnant.

01/14/2026

My husband is a man of few words. He’s not a big talker but when he does speak, I usually find myself clamoring for a pencil.

One of his most common sayings is this, “if you like it, I love it.”

A few days ago, I bought a new lamp for our bathroom. It was a simple thing but it absolutely thrilled me. (It doesn’t take much 🤪)

My man, however, does not share my excitement over ambient lighting. I don’t know if he has ever even turned on a lamp.

But when I asked what he thought about our new, completely unnecessary, lamp in the bathroom- “if you like it, I love it,” was his response.

And this is what marriage is. It is support and love for things I may not understand or desire but I encourage and nurture because it matters to my spouse. He loves my new lamp because it brings me joy. This concept may seem silly in scenarios like new lamps but it also impacts life’s biggest decisions. The truth in that sentence makes our marriage a happier, stronger one.

It goes well beyond material things and bleeds into every decision we make.

Later today, there will probably be a package delivered with a new pocket knife inside. These packages come frequently because my husband loves and collects pocket knives the way I love lamps and blankets.

I’ve never wanted a pocket knife. But when it shows up, I know I’ll love it. Because he likes it.

01/09/2026

This.

01/09/2026

“Should we accept good from God and not trouble?”

It’s a tough question. It’s also the question that Job asked his wife in Job 2:10. After he had lost everything. Everything.

I know the answer in my head, but sometimes it’s hard to reconcile it in my heart. If God loves us so much why do bad things happen?

There can be many explanations for the problems in our lives. Some we cause on our own. Some others bring into our lives and some seem to have no explanation at all.

Consider this. When your child was learning to walk, did he ever fall down? Of course the answer is yes. Did you decide he should no longer try to walk because of the pain it caused him? Of course not. As a parent you know that falling down and sometimes getting hurt is part of the process of becoming stronger, more stable and finally able to walk.

The falling down parts of my Christian journey have been painful. There has been some pain caused by my own choices and some from the choices of others. Both have made me stronger, more stable and finally able to walk more closely with Jesus.

It’s in the trials that I cling more tightly to Him and He always gently reminds me to get up and walk again.

Get up and walk my friends, you can do hard things. Trust God when trouble comes, I have found Him to be faithful and I bet you will too.